


Tick, Tock

by TiniBopper



Category: Gravity Falls
Genre: Beheading, Blood Loss, Dark, Demon Deals, Disembowelment, Drowning, Emetophobia (vomiting), Emotional Abuse, Extreme Dehydration, Gore, Human Bill Cipher, Incineration, Lasers, M/M, Manipulation, Mental Abuse, Nightmares, Older Dipper Pines, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Panic Attacks, Poisoning, Possessiveness, Read at Your Own Risk, Stalking, Strangulation, Suicide, Taphophobia (fear of being buried alive), Time Loop, Tongue trauma, Torture, Unhealthy Relationships, all those trigger warnings, apparently I as the author am going to be a semi-recurring character now, death by crushing, devaluation/depersonization, disconnected limbs, dubcon, eye gore, look at your choices, look at your life, noncon, scalding hot steam, whoopsie
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-03-16
Updated: 2015-09-11
Packaged: 2018-03-18 02:50:13
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 11
Words: 34,619
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3553289
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TiniBopper/pseuds/TiniBopper
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The old argument of Nature vs Nurture is a moot point; without both, change can never occur. The same variables causing the same outcomes is unavoidable without influence from a different angle.</p><p>Dipper, stuck in one endless loop, has had the Nurture variable, the environmentally influenced one, removed from him. If he cannot remember previous results, his Nature dooms him to make the same mistakes.</p><p>Luckily, there exists one constant variable to alter his path. Nightmares are a constant. The journal is, as it has always been, an eye opener.</p><p>For some reason, though, even when he's awake, he just can't shake the feeling that he's still dreaming.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Tick

**Author's Note:**

> Fair warning, in case you missed it in the tags. THIS WORK IS GOING TO BE HELLA TRIGGERING. Read at your own risk.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> WMGBEG DOEWXOW, EG KKM IKMPGBXL JOKM VY LIA YNZ IYHLDIXA... [Vigenere]

There was a very particular kind of feeling that Dipper Pines started associating with the end of summer, beginning at the end of his twelfth year of life. It was an odd mixture of anticipation for his own and his twin’s birthday, at the end of August, the usual mixture of determination and dread for the school year to come, and a soft whisper of melancholy for leaving the fantastic and terrifyingly amazing small town that had eaten up their summer days with adventures. When they returned to Gravity Falls the second summer, after all but begging their parents to let them go back, a slight tension in the back of his mind that he hadn’t noticed for most of the past year finally released. He was home.

Three months wasn’t enough time, no matter how many times he looked at the calendar to remind himself to savor each day. He remembered slowly falling out of practice of marking off the days as they passed, since he had gotten good at looking at the calendar and locating the day almost by instinct. He realized later, as he and Mabel climbed on the bus toward home and their fourteenth birthday and the beginning of high school, that it was starting to feel like a survival instinct. The melancholy came, and the tension, as the bus left the small town behind them. He felt as though he were one of Mabel’s sweaters, with one loose string tethered back to the Shack as they drove away. Slowly taking a little bit more of him with each mile they put between them and Gravity Falls.

Freshman year brought the exact kind of hell that he expected it to, but he did his best to at least push himself through new trials. He joined track and field, and found a grouping of friends there despite his initial struggles to catch up with their enthusiastic sports obsession. All of the running he was doing over the summers helped to make the actual physical activity easier to adjust to, in any case, and his new ‘friend’ group was quick to realize that despite his already growing reputation for academics, he had a noticeable talent for the track. Hurdles were easy compared to tree roots the size of his torso.

Their parents, their dad in particular, seemed thrilled that their intellectual son was finally latching onto a more typical ‘guy’ hobby, though he kept track of his cryptozoological interests nonetheless. He’d managed to transform a book of simple, faded leather holding in a decent number of pages of thick, blank paper into a proper reference guide compiling all of the information from the original three journals in neat, orderly pages. Erroneous information was stripped back and removed. His own observations were added. Mabel provided the artistic pictures to match the original.

He had pretended that this new journal was something he had bought, something he was making for fun, when his parents asked about it. It was better not to tell them about all the life-threatening dangers and the countless near-death experiences he and Mabel had had over their past two summers. Better not to risk not being able to go back. The feeling of relaxation and tension giving out that came when they stepped off the bus for the third time was a nearly palpable thing.

And so it continued. An amazing summer would seem to slip past his fingers, followed by a school year that almost always felt as though some part of him was misplaced. As their sixteenth birthday and the end of their fourth summer spent in Gravity Falls approached, the news came that Wendy would be going off to college after next year’s summer, at University of Portland, and so would be moving away from Gravity Falls for a long, if not indefinite while.

That was when the nightmares first started. Somehow, the knowledge that after that next summer, their summers at Gravity Falls would likely never be the same again left a part of him cracked away and gone, and that wounded part let in night terrors that woke him in a cold sweat almost every night at the witching hours. Junior year was more difficult on him mentally, physically, and emotionally than any year previous. Days blurred into one another. He tried to sleep more, and yet slept less.

He couldn’t pinpoint when that summer, their fifth and last summer, started. He couldn’t remember most of the beginning of it, slipping by with all of the same impossible speed of the last ones, weaving desperation into his being. May was gone before he could think straight.

He never thought he’d come to hate the sounds of ticking clocks.

He never thought he’d hate the _sound_ of time _passing._

~*~*~

It started as it usually did.

Restocking the shelves, chatting offhand whenever a customer had a question, doing whatever mundane task their aging great-uncle set them to do, the usual. He kept his thoughts to himself about the entire thing, waiting until an opportunity to slip away presented itself, and then disappeared out the back door and into the woods.

Half of the time he would wait for Mabel to find a moment, but increasingly often, he’d leave her behind. She adored working the tours with Grunkle Stan. He couldn’t tear her away from that when she was in the zone.

The woods offered a living quiet, punctuated with whispers of the breeze in the leaves and the sound of animals wandering nearby. He ducked under a few low hanging tree branches as he eased off of the usual path, certain after four summers worth of exploring that he could find the path no matter where he went in the trees.

He pulled his personal journal out of the inside pocket of his vest, grabbing the pen he kept tucked away with him as well, and started looking for tracks. Nothing was better than trailing after some unknown monster to find more information, when he wanted to clear his head.

The further into the trees he went, away from the well traversed path that led between the Shack and the rest of town, the quieter the world seemed to become. Fallen and dried leaves crunched underfoot with every few steps, even while he did his best to avoid them where he could. He knelt in front of a small bush that had a noticeably broken branch and a splash of crimson coating it, and eased into an even more careful mindset. Whatever had passed through here was injured, and that could mean it was likely more dangerous than usual.

He was used to the sensation of eyes watching him, after four summers of wandering the woods. The gnomes were everywhere, for one, and he knew he wasn’t the only predator-based creature in these woods. He compared the first few tracks he found with his notes and breathed out through his nose in lieu of a hum. Hooves, small and delicate. Spaced out fairly well, probably running away from something. It must have left that something behind, since he didn’t see any other tracks.

Probably a deer.

He trailed it nonetheless, since they were the first tracks he had found, and climbed over one tree’s roots to keep them in sight. The tallest root was as thick around as he was, and curved up to the height of his torso.

The further into the woods he got, the quieter it seemed to become. Not even the leaves rustled, as though even the wind was holding its breath for what he would find. He finally ducked as the trees opened up into a clearing and felt a startled yelp catch in his throat.

It _was_ a deer.

Emphasis on _was._

It could barely be classified as that, now. It looked as though it had been set upon by a pack of wolves, with the flesh torn from several areas of its body and three of its four legs crunched and laying in odd angles. He inched toward it, keeping an eye out around him in case any predators were around waiting for a new target to attack. The dirt was highly disturbed around the -- carcass, he had to call it a carcass now, he couldn’t stand to think of it as a deer still -- so he couldn’t pick out any tracks leading to or from in particular. Kneeling down next to the remains, he flipped through the pages of his journal.

He examined the edges where the flesh had been torn away, comparing them with the page he had prepped in reference. There were ragged places, where it looked like the flesh had been torn away from the bone by sharp, jagged teeth, and yet there were places that looked less like that, and more like a practiced sushi chef took a thousand small knives and literally _peeled_ the skin and fur away, revealing the muscle beneath. The legs were broken, but they didn’t look as though they had been bitten so much as crushed under something. The one that was still lying straight, upon closer inspection, was only connected by the barest filamentous threads of muscle.

He scribbled a few half-hearted notes to keep himself steady. It wasn’t the first dead animal he had seen, but it rocketed to the top of the list of the most viciously brutalized ones. As he examined his way up to the head of the deer, he found the first truly _wrong_ disconcerting thing.

The teeth were missing. All of them, simply gone, not a single one left attached to the gums. The places where they had been were neatly open holes, with a suspicious lack of blood there.

Everything else could have been coincidence or a strange turn of bad luck for the deer, explainable. But the missing teeth were too perfectly removed.

It was then he realized the silence around him was not the usual silence of the world holding its breath, but _total_ silence. His own suddenly hammering heartbeat and shallow, slightly panicked breathing were the only things he could hear. The sensation of being watched intensified as he felt himself go very, _very_ still.

Without thinking twice, he pushed to his feet with a speed trained from track and field, shoving his journal and the pen back into his vest and starting to run. He knew the direction he had come from, he would find the path and get back to Mabel and the Shack and everything would be _fine._

The echoing laughter that was starting to creep into his head notwithstanding.

_I’ll be fine. I can outrun anything, or anyone._

He was nearly hyperventilating as he ran before he realized he didn’t recognize any of the trees, despite the fact that he had been running long enough that he should have been in a far more familiar area. He was dodging tree branches a whole lot more than he had expected to. How long had he been running? How long had he been at the deer? How long had he been out in the woods?

 _Took five minutes to notice the teeth…_ the thought crept into his mind unbidden, _how long was he there? How long didn’t I notice the--_

A tree root he could have sworn wasn’t there the second before hooked his foot, and he went crashing into the ground with a yelp of pain. His ankle was at least twisted, if not outright broken. A sharp rock was digging into his side, where he had landed on it, between one of his ribs. He could feel blood seeping from that wound and leaving a cold feeling inching up his side. His breathing came in jagged gasps, caught on the pain and the spiking terror.

The world went gray.

“You’re actually getting _worse_ at this game of cat and mouse~”

The voice was the one that he _didn’t_ want to hear in that moment, and it was the last thing he heard before a mind-shattering sort of pain exploded right at the base of his skull. He remained aware long enough to watch his own body fall to the ground, as long fingered, gloved hands scooped up his head and he was raised to peer into a too-toothy, bloody grin and a glowing amber eye.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> WLFN, WRFN, JRHV WKH FORFN,  
> DOZDBV SXVKLQJ DKHDG  
> FOLFN, FODFN, VHQG LW EDFN  
> QR FORVHU WR ZKHQ L'P GHDG.  
> [Caesar]


	2. Tock

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TFG IHI CGTYG IXH? [Vigenere]

His eyes snapped open at three seventeen AM on the dot, right as the alarm clock shifted to the next number.

Dipper stared blankly up toward the ceiling for a few moments, letting his heartbeat slow down to normal again and counting the seconds and his own breaths until he was calm enough to very slowly turn his head and look into the darkness of the room.

Mabel was still sound asleep in the bed across from him, curled up and breathing softly into her pillow, her hair falling in wild curls and tangles around and over her face. Whatever had woken him hadn’t made him cry out, at least.

His throat burned and ached when he turned his head again, and a dizziness swept over him with the movement, sending a pounding wave of nausea through his system. He did his best to swallow beyond the pain, easing himself out of bed as best as he could. The floorboards creaked, but he knew it was better to just keep moving. If Mabel woke up, he’d just seem like he had to use the bathroom.

The bathroom was his destination, anyway. He did his best not to turn his head too much, since that seemed to make the nausea spike without mercy. The dizzy feeling wasn’t going away, despite his best efforts. Even with his eyes closed and feeling his way along the wall to find the right door, he still felt as though he was about to fall over every few seconds.

Once he had managed to limp his way to the bathroom, he felt his way to the toilet and knelt in front of it, before very slowly opening his eyes and taking a deep breath.

After a second and a half of mental preparation for what he was about to do, he gripped the edge of the toilet bowl tightly with both hands and turned his head down deliberately quickly. As he had hoped and intended, the quick movement sent another wave of nausea through him, one that he didn’t bother trying to fight down.

His shoulders shook as he heaved out most of the contents of his stomach and what felt like a part of his intestines. It burned more than he thought it should have, a sordid array of mushy green-brown, half digested food, and an unsettling amount of crimson. For a few moments, he jerked his head to the left and right enough to cause more upheavals, until the only thing coming out was bile and blood. The surges of nausea waned, taking more and more movements each time, and after a while more, he stayed hunched over the toilet. 

Shaking his head from left to right to test himself, he eventually deemed himself done with the nausea, and pulled himself, shaking, to his feet again. He felt himself favoring one of his feet, which was buzzing with pins and needles and didn’t seem to want to hold his weight. His knuckles were white and his fingers hurt from the grip he’d maintained on the toilet bowl. He stumbled a bit as he leaned on the counter above the sink, one hand rubbing the sweat from his brow.

It didn’t help that he couldn’t remember what had woken him up. He turned the sink on and cupped his hands under it, splashing water up at his face a few times and gulping some of it down his burning throat. He could have sworn it was something to do with an eye staring at him, but that was pretty standard for most of his nightmares. He splashed a bit more water on his face and glanced up into the mirror.

A shriek caught itself in his still pained throat when he caught the sight in the mirror. For the barest flicker of a second, the water dripping down his face was just as crimson as the blood he had coughed up. He looked down at the water cupped in his hands, and the same flicker happened -- one second it was water, the next it was crimson and just the same thickness and consistency of _blood_ and then it was water again. He ran his tongue over his teeth and felt a new wave of sickness when the coppery tang met his taste buds. 

He closed his eyes for a few seconds, furiously telling himself it was just the blood that had come up when he threw up. Another scoop of water would help. He was just on edge and freaking out about nothing. Imagining things.

When he opened his eyes again, everything was normal. He gulped down another handful of water, dried off his face, and peered at the mirror for a few seconds more, as though almost daring the horrific sight to show itself again.

When nothing else happened, he turned and eased his way back toward his and Mabel’s shared room, pinching at his tear ducts to clear them. 

He didn’t go back to bed, instead grabbing his journal and climbing out onto the ledge of the roof. He knew that he wouldn’t be getting any more sleep that night, anyway, and the cold night air of pre-dawn summer was soothing in a way that he couldn’t quite shake away. He lay back against the shingles and shifted until he was comfortable, turning his eyes up toward the stars.

For a long while, he let his thoughts drift, following his eyes as he looked from star to star, tracing the constellations he could see. He couldn’t remember how many nights he’d woken up from a nightmare, now, but it had to be nearly a week’s worth. At least, he thought it was at least a week. He’d have to check the calendar to see what day it was. 

Sometime in mid-June, he thought. He’d ask to make sure when everyone else was awake.

He was so caught up in his thoughts that he almost missed the flutter of movement to his right. Turning his head to seek it, he saw nothing of note. Nonetheless, it left him on edge once more. He didn’t relax again until the sun was rising over the horizon and he began to hear sounds of life from within the Shack.

~*~*~

Something wasn’t right.

Dipper stared at the calendar page for a good minute and a half, eyes flickering from date to date and an increasing sense of disgruntled confusion swimming through his mind. The month was right, he knew that much, with June’s Monster-of-the-Month picture hanging over the grid of boxes, but he couldn’t for the life of him remember what day it was. He should have been able to do that. He knew he could do that.

Mabel, across the room and going through her morning routine of brushing the night’s tangles out of her hair, glanced up at him through the mirror. “Something wrong, bro-bro?” she asked, tilting her head into the brush.

“I…” he shook his head, before looking over toward her, to her reflection in the mirror. “Mabel, what’s today?”

“Tuesday.”

“ _Which_ Tuesday?”

She paused in her brushing, staring him down in the reflective surface for a few seconds before answering him.

“June fourth. I know you’ve been out of it, but never thought you’d lose track of what day it was.”

He turned his eyes back toward the calendar, frowning at the small box emblazoned with a fancy, curlicued _4_ as though it were somehow to blame for his hazy brain. “Cut me some slack, Mabel,” he muttered, “I swear it was... May... yesterday.”

She shrugged and flipped her hair back behind her head, setting the brush down and shaking her head until the curls bounced into a more natural position. “Whatever, bro-bro. Come on, let’s go get breakfast before Grunkle Stan decides we don’t deserve any.”

A niggling sense of deja vu tugged at his mind, but he dismissed it, following Mabel down the stairs and into the kitchen before she could claim all of the available breakfast.

~*~*~

“Whoa, bag-check for Dipper’s face!”

His pancakes were sitting in front of him with a splash of maple syrup (Mountie Man, always loyal to Mountie Man.) and a squirt of whipped cream on top of them, but despite his initial worry about not getting anything to eat, he found that the thought of repeatedly swallowing sent aches up and down his throat. He poked at the fluffy breakfast food idly, trying to brush off Grunkle Stan’s taunting. “Yeah, yeah, I didn’t sleep well.”

“We can see that.” Mabel put her chin in her hands, “You weren’t up all night reading some dumb book again, were you?”

“Not all night.” he pushed a few pieces of pancake around his plate, frowning, “Just the last few hours of it.”

“You woke up in the middle of the night _again_?” Mabel’s tone was an odd cross between sympathetic and mildly perturbed. “What from?”

“Don’t remember. Probably the usual dream, being chased by something, wake up right before you die?” It sounded kind of right, but at the same time excessively wrong.

Grunkle Stan looked up from his coffee and stared at him with an intense look, frowning faintly as his eyes flickered from the dark circles under Dipper’s eyes to his mostly untouched food. “Okay, kid, what the _hell_ is going on with you? You’ve barely eaten anything. Mabel’s on her thirds.” 

“It’s… nothing, I guess I just don’t have much of an appetite.” he shoved his plate over toward Mabel, who looked up with clear concern on her face. If it was that obvious, no use trying to hide it. He pulled his hat further down onto his head while he ducked his gaze away.

“Nothing my crusty old ass.” Grunkle Stan all but snarled the words, crossing his arms and staring him down across the table. At the beginning of their third summer in Gravity Falls, their great uncle had stopped censoring himself around them after one particular instance with a heavy box and Dipper’s foot. He’d taken Dipper’s loud cursing as a sign that they knew the words and wouldn’t be bothered anymore. Such was growing up. “You’ve got sleeping problems, trouble eating, and I found a couple of spots of blood in the guest bathroom’s toilet this morning.”

_Thunk._ Dipper let the table knock his cap off in his quest to rest his forehead against the cool, cracked wood. “Okay, so the nightmare might have made me sick. I’m still a little nauseous. That’s why I’m not eating. But I swear, I’ll be fine.”

For a long moment, he could feel Grunkle Stan and Mabel staring at him, before a clattering sound of kitchenware being pushed toward him made him lift his head. Grunkle Stan had slid a plate of toast and a glass of extra pulpy orange juice toward him, with a look that dared him to argue.

Dipper, for his part, managed a rueful smile and grabbed a slice of the toast to at least nibble on.

~*~*~

Later on, in between tending to customers and restocking the shelves, Dipper flipped idly through his journal to eat up a few minutes while everyone else wandered around the shop. He wasn’t sure what he was looking for -- a blank page, maybe? Something to write? -- but he knew he had found something to catch his interest when he felt himself pausing on a page of half-finished notes. 

> _Deer carcass  
>  Brutally mutilated, three legs crushed and broken, fourth leg barely attached. Skin alternately peeled away and torn as though by teeth. Looks almost too deliberate. No discernable tracks of other animals leading to or from the carca_

The word cut off in the middle, the pen marks streaking away from the last letter as though he had pulled away quickly, in the middle of another movement. It was his handwriting, he knew that much. But he didn’t remember writing any of it.

Maybe he had been sleep-writing again? He flipped back a page and spotted a small scribble and a set of tally marks in the corner.

> _June 4th, 2017?  
>  | | | | ??_

Despite the cold feeling that was inching across his skin, he added a tally mark to the odd little set and flipped his journal closed, tucking it away. He’d -- He’d think about it later. When he had a free moment.

He kept his thoughts to himself about the entire thing, waiting until an opportunity to slip away presented itself, and then disappeared out the back door and into the woods. 

Nothing was better than trailing after some unknown monster to find more information, when he wanted to clear his head.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> SLD NZMB WZBH SZH RG YVVM GLWZB? [Atbash]


	3. Tick

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> LEGOM LTOTUU, ZBVG DKMG. [Vigenere]

“You know, I thought it might get boring~”

His back was slammed into a aged redwood with enough force to splinter the wood, with a long fingered hand around his throat and holding him against the tree trunk. He clawed uselessly with trembling hands at the strangling factor, but his fingers simply slipped across the smooth, silken fabric of the gloves.

“But for once, I’m happy to admit I was wrong! This little game of cat and mouse is _hilarious_.” 

Dipper wheezed as much air as he could through his constricted windpipe, straining to kick out at the tall, angular body that held him against the tree. He couldn’t comprehend what he was seeing, even though a part of him registered the usual pure-terror that came with a life or death situation. The voice was familiar enough, but the body it was coming from was _wrong, all wrong_.

The man in front of him lifted his free hand, twisting his fingers a bit as blue fire played across their gloved tips. In a human form, it was easier to read the almost manic glee on his face as he peered at Dipper, rather in the way that a dingo would look at a small child. The voice marked him as Bill Cipher, unmistakable, and the color scheme even matched up well -- a yellow and black suit, like a bumble bee, with curly blond hair that fell in long, messy bangs in front of one patched eye. The uncovered eye was amber colored and all but glowing with delight as it roved over Dipper’s features (he was sure he was turning greyish blue, by now, from the difficulty breathing).

“Eight unique situations where I get to watch your fire burn out, Pine Tree! Eight! And this is just the beginning!” The fingers around his neck were tightening, ever so slowly, a maddeningly slow approach when compared against what Dipper could tell was a downright inhuman strength. Bill might look human, but he was still anything but.

Dipper grasped at Bill’s wrist with both of his hands, a soft, wheezing whine vibrating through his vocal chords, his kicking slowing as the world, already grey all around them, began to blur out at the edges. As though he didn’t even notice, Bill kept talking, bringing the firelit fingers around to Dipper’s cheek, casting their blue light and scalding heat across his face. Searing pain bubbled along his cheek where his skin began to dry and split from the flame’s proximity. He did his best to jerk his head away from them, as much as the hand around his throat would allow.

“Always fighting…~” The tone was almost _reverent_ , as though the demon admired his will to survive. “Always running. That fire of yours doesn’t stop spitting embers until it’s completely doused! It’s amusing~” Instead of bringing the intensely burning flames to his skin, they flickered out and the silkily gloved fingertips brushed across his now throbbing cheek, deceptively cool and smooth, almost soothing over the aching parts. “And with this game of ours, I get to douse it as many times as I like. And the best part!”

The hand around his throat loosened a fraction, allowing Dipper to gasp for air and cling to consciousness for a moment more. “The best part is, your fighting spirit will _never_ go away, even while you get easier and easier to catch. I never realized how much you meatbags rely on _memory_ before.”

Dipper, dizzy with the near strangulation, struggled to make sense of what he was saying. The demon was monologuing, all but talking to himself while addressing Dipper. “For example~ I’d normally ask if you liked my skilled presentation of that deer, but you wouldn’t even know what I was talking about, since I didn’t kill it this run through! As far as you’re concerned, you never found the tracks, never found my delightful brutalization of innocence.”

“What are you-- ta--” the words wheezed past Dipper’s lips before he could hold them back, and the hand tightened again as though Bill had realized he could still breathe for some reason. 

“Yeah, exactly~” The cross between a chuckle and a cackle that the demon let out was distinctly inhuman. “So much _fun,_ watching you trip over and over again _inevitably_ into my claws, little mouse. And knowing that it’ll happen again, and again, and again.” Each mention of the word _again_ brought another twitch to the fingers, drawing them tighter against his throat. “Knowing that you’ll always make the same mistakes. Knowing that you can’t even remember agreeing to our little game, every time you wake up. Knowing that you don’t remember agreeing to be _hunted_. Like a present I get to open over and over again. And like an infinitely recurring nightmare, for you.”

The world blurred again, Dipper’s grip around the demon’s wrist growing slack as his energy sapped away. His head was pounding, the beating of his heart slamming like a jackhammer against his skull, furiously trying to reiterate the fact that he was _still alive_ , if only barely--

“On that note…” The free hand caressed his cheek again, its thumb brushing against his skin in a mockery of affection, and suddenly Bill’s face was inches from his own, eye gleaming with deliberately insincere gentleness. His voice dropped into a sickly-sweet, almost adoring tone, despite what he was about to do. “Sweet dreams, Pine Tree. See you in the morning~” 

No matter how hard Dipper tried to fight it, the world slowly faded out around him, and the pounding in his head slowed and grew fainter, until everything finally slipped away.

~*~*~

Three seventeen AM. One hundred and ninety seven minutes past midnight. His eyes snapped open with a strangled gasp of air, struggling past his lips as though he had been underwater for far too long. For a long couple of moments, he focused on the way his lungs felt as they expanded and contracted, the way each breath seemed to _ache_ in a way that he didn’t think was supposed to happen.

Whatever his nightmare had been about, it had to have been a doozy. He brought a hand up to rub at his eyes and was surprised to find that it was still trembling. His skull was pounding in time with his heart, and he swore he could _feel_ the blood pulsing through his veins.

Turning his head to the left and wincing as the movement hurt, he peered across the room at Mabel, still sleeping peacefully. He watched the way that the nearly-full moon’s light illuminated her cheek through the window, the rise and fall of her chest, so easy and without trouble. He found himself watching her, the way her curls shifted whenever she moved to get more comfortable. Mabel was something _there_ , something dependable. Someone he could always look to.

He brought a hand around to pinch at his arm, relishing the pain, but didn’t feel settled. Something at the back of his mind was wrong. Something at the back of his mind was _missing_.

Somehow, he still felt like he was dreaming.

He rolled slowly onto his side, still watching Mabel’s easy breathing and letting his thoughts wander. He wondered, for a few moments, whether his dream had been invaded or if he had simply been woken up as he had for most of the past year, shaken and unsettled but nonetheless demon-free.

He pushed up to sit, leaning back against his hands, before swinging himself out of bed. Maybe a glass of water would help him get back to sleep. Or if not, it would at least wake him up properly and he’d not be so exhausted.

Padding through the hallway and to the bathroom, he felt a surge of shock course through his mind when he flipped the light on and saw himself in the mirror. Forming around his throat was a nasty looking bruise, slowly turning blue-green across his skin. He brought a hand up to gently prod at it with two fingers, wincing as the pressure prompted a jolt of pain and a surge of almost instinctual panic. He cringed and jerked his hand away again.

Hand still shaking, he raised it again and turned his fingers around one side of his neck, and his thumb around the other. He was careful not to touch. His hand didn’t cover the bruise completely, but it confirmed his suspicion; it was a hand print. It was definitely a hand print.

Someone had tried to strangle him in his sleep.

Or… strangle him, period. It might have not been in his sleep, he probably would have been aware of that. He probably would have…

...woken…

...up.

He flinched again, the thought hitting home. He’d been woken up suddenly. But he hadn’t seen anyone in their room, no one except Mabel, and she had been sleeping, perfectly asleep. And anyway, he was pretty sure that being knocked out by strangulation could, er… do stuff to memory, maybe? Maybe the fact that he had woken up suddenly was just him suddenly becoming aware again. It didn’t have to mean someone had been strangling him in his bed. Him not remembering who could have done it wasn’t necessarily a sign that he hadn’t seen the person.

Besides, Mabel was the only one in the room. And her hands were smaller than his, even if he _did_ bother to entertain the downright _stupid_ idea that his twin might ever-- no, it was too ridiculous to even think it.

In any case, the bruise wasn’t going to be fun explaining. Maybe, uh… maybe it would be for the best if he didn’t let it be seen.

He was grateful that he shared Mabel’s skin tone, since she had started hiding makeup in all of the bathrooms of the Shack. He wasn’t surprised to find a small carrying case with ‘the essentials’ as she called them in it, and after a couple of seconds of digging through it, he found the concealer he was looking for. He made sure it matched his skin tone, on his wrist, and waited a couple of minutes to also make sure it wouldn’t itch or cause a rash.

When it didn’t, he applied it liberally and haltingly to the discoloring bruise. He had to stop every few swipes of makeup to let the pain that even the slightest pressure brought go away. Nearly twenty minutes later, after adding a dusting of setting-powder to make sure he didn’t smudge the concealer off accidentally, he finally put the makeup back in the drawer and, deciding he didn’t want that water to wake up after all, he left the bathroom.

He paused in the doorway to his and Mabel’s shared room for only a moment before padding over to her bed, nudging her until she scooted over in her sleep, mumbling about flying leprechauns and kitten-pig combinations. He eased himself into the spot that opened up next to her, and felt his heartbeat slow down to normal again when she rolled over and fit her arm over his waist.

They hadn’t cuddled together after a nightmare since they were four, and that time Mabel had been the one who had crawled into his bed. Nonetheless, it reassured him that she still fit against him despite the number of years since this had been necessary. He worked one arm under the pillow under both of their heads, and closed his eyes again, breathing coming easy when it was mingled with hers.

~*~*~

“Mnn… Dipper…?”

He groaned slightly and curled closer, shaking his head minutely into the pillow and knowing without caring how he knew that Mabel had woken up. “Shhh.” he slurred. “Still wanna sleep.”

“Why are you…” a hand brushed through his hair, through his bangs, before brushing back toward the back of his skull, and some of the tension slipped out of him again as Mabel sighed and mused out loud, “I guess we can sleep in today. I’ll convince Grunkle Stan to forgive us later.”

“Mn.” he pulled the blanket up over the both of them again, pushing his face into Mabel’s shoulder and giving an annoyed sound when some of her hair got into his nose. She bemusedly shifted and pulled her hair back into a loose knot, out of the way, before going back to petting his hair.

With the warmth of the blanket and Mabel’s understanding affection, he felt himself drifting safely back toward sleep. He’d explain himself later. For now, as long as he had his twin, everything was okay.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 16-22-22-11 15-2-18-13-20 7-12 2-12-6-9-8-22-15-21. [Atbash, A1Z26]


	4. Tock

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> BH'U KEZ KX ACY IHI NYHY CD MVKXZG. [Vigenere]

He woke up an hour and a half later to the sound of raised voices downstairs and the sensation that he had been abandoned. Mabel wasn’t in the bed with him anymore, the room around him was empty. Downstairs, he could hear Grunkle Stan’s annoyance clear as day, loudly questioning (probably Mabel) why he was still in bed.

Instead of dragging himself out of it, he brought a hand up to brush against his throat and curled in on himself, shivering. He pulled the blanket tighter around himself and closed his eyes again, feeling himself relax into the warmth it brought while quiet descended downstairs again. Mabel had obviously talked Grunkle Stan down, somehow, and considering he wasn’t bellowing for Dipper to wake up and get down to work, he had to assume that meant she had succeeded in playing the empathy card on his behalf.

Grunkle Stan was almost impossible to convince through pathos, but if anyone could formulate a pathos-based argument against him, it was Mabel. She hadn’t invented the puppy dog eyes, but she had more than improved on them. 

He kept his eyes closed for a good few moments more, but sleep wouldn’t return no matter how much he wanted it to. After a bit, he let out a heaving sigh and rolled over, easing himself out of Mabel’s bed and stretching. The shivery feeling of something not right stayed with him, increasing when he reluctantly left her blanket behind.

Making a split second decision, he moved to the dresser on her half of the room and dug through it until he found one of her oversized sweaters, hand-knitted and dark midnight blue with thick yarn and glow in the dark stars embroidered into it in various constellations. He smiled a bit while he traced the lines of the Big Dipper, centered on the sweater’s chest.

When she had originally knitted this sweater, it had just been the blue color with no added designs. It was only after he stole it a couple of times to curl up in it himself that she decided to embroider on the stars and constellations. She never said anything out loud about it, but he could speak the language his twin used; the centering of his namesake constellation was as clear of a ‘this one can be for you’ as one could get out of her. Considering how much she adored her sweaters, knowing that this one was unofficially _his_ warmed his heart.

The chill slowly went away, chased off by the warmth of the sweater and its reassurances. The turtle-neck helped ease his tension a bit as well. No chances for anyone to see his neck. No chances that the bruise would show.

He tucked his chin down until the neck of the sweater covered his mouth and pressed against his nose, breathing in and out slowly a few times and closing his eyes again. He pulled his hands into the sleeves and tucked his arms around himself, standing still and letting his mind go blank. No worries. No stress. Just Sweatertown. 

Just for a few minutes.

[ _No hand around his throat. No devilishly manic grin. No amber eye staring into his own._ ]

His eyes snapped open again, and a shudder raced up and down his spine. As quickly as the instant of panic had washed over him, just so quickly was it gone the instant later. He lifted his head out of the sweater’s neck, blinking owlishly for a few seconds and trying to chase after the thoughts that had caused that instant of panic, but they were already gone as well.

He pulled his hands out through the sweater’s arm holes again, hooking his thumbs through the deliberately loose stitching at the hems and turning to the dresser next to his bed. His journal was resting on top of it.

He scooped up his journal and a pen, flopping back down onto his bed and bracing his back against the headboard. He settled himself in, flipping through the pages of his journal and clicking the pen. Scanning his previous entries, he tried to remind himself of how most of the early summer had gone. May, while it was hazy and a bit distant, was still neatly recorded down on the thick paper in his familiar neat handwriting. The ent that walked through downtown, causing a panic that spread like a wildfire. The toddler who’d been turned into a vampire, jokingly dubbed the Widdlest Wampire fiasco. The moving mountain.

He flicked a few pages more, skipping his entries for the first three days of June, and then another couple of pages, surprised when two pages after a short entry for June 4th was blank. He could have sworn it was mid June already. In fact, he’d been planning on writing a quick entry about his apparent strangle mark.

Though, now that he thought about it… what day _was_ it, anyway?

He glanced at the calendar hanging on the wall in their room, frowning faintly when none of the boxes seemed to sit right. Damn it. He should have been able to do this. He had plenty of practice just _knowing_ the day on a calendar when he saw it. The date… was....

...god, fucking, _damn_ it.

He couldn’t do it. 

He sighed and flipped his journal closed around the pen, tucking it up under the sweater before toeing on his shoes and heading for the stairs. If he was going to go downstairs, it would probably be for most of the day. Grunkle Stan would doubtlessly corner him as soon as he was seen. But at least he’d be able to ask Mabel the date.

He made a beeline for the kitchen, hoping to get there before anyone saw him so he could use the excuse of getting food to delay having to go to work. If he was lucky, he’d run into Mabel before Grunkle Stan saw him.

It was while he was ducked down and looking into the fridge that he heard Mabel come into the kitchen. She let out a muffled but happy yelp of surprise at seeing him, hurrying over to grab his arm and spinning him around out of the fridge. “Dipping Sauce! Feeling better?”

“A bit.” He blinked at her, a bit dizzy and taken aback by the sudden jerking around, “Sorry… for this morning, I mean.”

She looked him over, her smile falling away when she realized he was bundled up in what she associated as ‘Dipper’s Comfort Sweater’. “Still out of it, huh?” she tugged at the yarn of the sleeve, making it clear what she was referring to.

“A bit.” Dipper gave a rueful smile, the irony of repeating the same phrase for an opposite question not lost on him. “Hey, uh, before I forget to ask, what’s today?”

“Out of it enough to lose your calendar powers?” she gave a dramatic gasp, “Maybe you should go back up to bed, you must be sick or something!” she pressed a hand to his forehead, a serious look on her face as she checked his temperature. “It’s June fourth, silly. Tuesday.”

An odd chill raced down his spine as she pulled her hand away. Something about her words struck him as _wrong_. He tucked his fingers into the woolen yarn of the sweater and pressed the fingertips against the rough leather of his journal, shivering. “Maybe I... _should_ go back to bed…” he mumbled, frowning and biting his lip, “Cover for me?”

“You know it. Feel better, broseph.” she punched his shoulder, earning a half-hearted laugh and a shove back, before he grabbed an apple out of the fridge and hurried back toward the stairs. 

A hand landed on his shoulder before he could start up, and he was spun around again, this time by Grunkle Stan. “Hey, hey, hey! Where do you think _you’re_ going, lazy bones! The shelves need restocking.”

He grimaced and attempted to shrug Stan’s hand off of his shoulder. “I, uh…”

“Leave him alone, Grunkle Stan,” Mabel grumped from behind the octogenarian, swinging around his side to stand next to Dipper with her arms crossed, “He’s going back to bed. My orders, since he’s sick. You wouldn’t want him spreading his germs to any of the tourists, or to Wendy or Soos, making _them_ not be able to work!”

Stan retracted his hand fast enough that Dipper was sure it could have caused the old man whiplash, and he gave a sheepish grin up toward the elder Pines. “S-Sorry, Grunkle Stan.”

“Yeah, yeah, whatever.” The older man groused, crossing his arms, “Just-- get back upstairs before I change my mind, kid. I see you down here again and I _will_ be putting you to work, fair warning.”

Dipper didn’t need to be told twice. He turned and dashed up the stairs as fast as his feet could carry him, swinging his way into his and Mabel’s still-shared attic room and shutting the door behind him. As soon as it was closed, he leaned back against it and let his back slide down the rough wood of the door until he was sitting at its base.

He tugged his journal out from his sweater, the pen slipping free from between the pages and clattering several inches away from him, rolling across the floor. He flipped through the pages while catching the fleeing pen with his foot, rolling it back toward himself, the cold feeling returning and spreading slowly from his lower gut. He nearly ripped the page he was trying to get to, his hands were starting to shake so badly.

At the top of the page, just as he had suspected, in the corner.

> _June 4th 2017?  
>  | | | | |??_

He scanned the short entry, which looked like it had been hurriedly written. He didn’t know how it could be there, considering he hadn’t written anything yet today. None of the words of the entry made any sense either.

> _Found the tally marks, and the entry on the following page._

He flipped forward a page to do a quick once over of the entry there, but it was just as mysterious and strange as the one he was reading -- something about a deer carcass, ending suddenly in the middle of a word with a streak of the pen across the page.

> _Went out to the woods to clear my head. Wrong move. Don’t have much time before he finds me._

The chill was spreading through his system. He couldn’t tear his eyes from the page.

> _Today is repeating. I don’t know how but I know it’s happening. Something’s got to be going on, that much is certain. Woke up this morning from a nightmare that I couldn’t remember, head spinning and nauseous._

The nightmare that morning. It wasn’t exactly the same, but the circumstances were similar. He scrambled for the pen, picking it up and reading the rest of the short entry, his breathing starting to come in short hyperventilating wheezes.

> _Memory is compromised. Don’t trust what you remember when you find this, me. Be on your guard.  
>  **You are being hunted.**_

He clicked the pen and brought it to the page, adding another tally mark to the grouping at the top and a quick line at the bottom of the entry to separate it from what he was about to write, scribbling underneath it in uneven, shaky handwriting.

> _Woke up this morning from a nightmare that I couldn’t remember, yet again. No nausea this time but found bruising of a handprint around my throat when I went into the bathroom. Wish I’d had the sense yesterday or last-today or whenever I wrote that last part up there to just say who was doing the hunting. Stupid! If my memory is compromised, then this journal might be the only way to keep a record of what I find out is happening. It’ll have to be a faulty substitute for my memory for now._

After a few seconds of hesitation, he counted the number of talley marks he had made (six, there were six tally marks including the one he had added. Who knew how many times the day had _actually_ repeated, but he’d at least _noticed_ it six times), before adding a small _(6th)_ to the end of his entry to mark which instance of that day he had done it. He pushed to his feet, half stumbling and half running across the room to dig through his drawer, trying to find a suitably garish bookmark -- something that would say “Look at me!” in case he woke up the next morning -- or, the next _this_ morning -- without his memory again. Better to notice sooner than later. The obnoxious cat-headed bookmark he shoved in between the pages would do nicely. It looked suitably out of place for one of his things and would definitely grab his attention.

The sooner he noticed, the sooner he would be alerted to the apparent danger he was in. He didn’t know yet how drastic the danger was, but he knew he’d find out.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 01001011010001010100010101010000001000000100000100100000010101110101001001001001010101000101010001000101010011100010000001010010010001010100001101001111010100100100010000101110 [Binary]


	5. Tick

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Finally back! Sorry for the delay, first had a friend over for a week and then caught that friend's cold, then Easter and all that... in any case, though, I should be back on track now. Have a slightly longer than usual Dipper-Death chapter!
> 
> BV VRBA EKLM, AYN ZGKETA CAWWVW JKDX BJO AIPN MPCD YMGNL GQE. [Vigenere]

He hid up in their room for an hour more before his stomach started growling at him, insisting that it needed more than just an apple for sustenance. Like hell was he going to go downstairs and risk getting caught, though. He could barely think straight at the moment and did _not_ need Grunkle Stan growling down his neck about trying his patience and about not having forever to live and about the fact that he was running a business, god damnit, and he needed his workers _working._

So instead of doing the normal thing by going down the stairs and risking being seen by Mabel and Grunkle Stan and everyone else, he climbed over the window sill and pulled himself up onto the roof, hiding behind the Mystery Shack sign when he saw a tour group going past. Behind the sign, out of the rays of the sun, the roof shingles still had some of the chill of the night clinging to them when he crouched down near them. Despite what he was doing, the cool roof shingles managed to help him stay calm.

Once the tour group was past, he shimmied over to the rain pipe, climbing down a foot at a time until his feet hit the ground. As soon as he was on the ground safely, he made a dash for the woods and the path toward town. Greasy’s wouldn’t be the healthiest of places to get food, but it would be the least likely place that he’d be looked at strangely. Just because he wasn’t there with his family wasn’t that big of a deal, and most people had a tendency to ignore what they could.

Before he was fully out of sight of the Shack, he paused, realizing he hadn’t grabbed his hat. Or brushed his hair. But oh well, he wasn’t about to try climbing back up the water pipe _or_ going through the gift shop without getting seen just to go get it.

He kept his eyes and ears open on the path, glancing warily through the trees and trying valiantly to ignore the feeling of eyes peering back at him. Even though he could probably have saved a bit of his walk by cutting through the woods (the road curved around a dense patch of trees to get to town), the weight of the journal and the words he had read kept his feet on the path instead. 

He felt his breathing and heart rate slow back to normal once he was out of the trees and onto the properly paved streets, ducking his head down and moving through the sparse sidewalk traffic. Most of the tourists were still at the Shack, this early in the day, and probably would be until about one PM, so not a lot of people were out. He still felt a bit self conscious, knowing that he didn’t have his hat to push down his curly bed-head hair, but his stomach overruled the desire to retreat.

He ducked his way into Greasy’s and immediately made for the table in the corner as soon as he saw it was empty, shifting the neck on the sweater to make sure his neck was completely covered. He grabbed one of the menus tucked to the side of the table and flipped it open, knowing that Grunkle Stan had a tab open and that he could just put his breakfast on it.

He was in the middle of debating between a plate of pancakes or a plate of eggs and bacon when someone slipped into the booth opposite him. For a blissful half-second he entertained the thought that maybe Mabel had seen him disappearing and had followed him.

Then he looked up.

The instinctive way his blood ran cold at the man before him should have been his biggest warning, but his brain insisted at first that his spike of panic was simply because a stranger had sat down across from him. He didn’t look like one of Gravity Falls’ permanent residents, or at least not anyone he recognised, with a well-tailored suit in a rather obnoxious golden shade. His hands were covered in sleek silken black gloves, despite the fact that it had to be approaching a hundred degrees outside. 

(Admittedly, his sweater-wearing wasn’t much better, but at least the yarn was loose and he wasn’t about to immediately overheat in it. Mabel’s sweaters were specifically made to be worn year round. She was funny like that.)

As soon as he saw the decidedly inhuman gleam in the single visible eye, though, he _knew_ that this was no stranger.

“Order for me, will you?” the blond demon hummed with a too-wide, disconcerting grin almost as soon as Dipper made eye contact. “I don’t understand how some of your human foods are better than others.”

Before Dipper could squeak out a demand to know what the hell was going on, and why Bill was there, Lazy Susan approached the table. She didn’t seem at all disturbed by the fact that Dipper was without any other member of his family, and for that matter was with another person he usually wasn’t with. She also didn’t seem to notice that there was anything inherently _wrong_ with Bill, despite the fact that the demon was now ripping open sugar packets and drawing perfectly shaped triangles on the uneven wood surface of the table with the dribbling stream of crystals.

“Morning, Dipper.” She intoned jovially, completely disregarding Bill’s newfound fascination with the sugar packets, “What can I getcha?”

“Uh.” The words caught in the back of his throat, and he made himself look away from Bill and down at the menu again, scrambling for something to say. “A… a plate of eggs, sunny-side up, and bacon for me, with sourdough toast and a glass of orange juice, please. And, um… a plate of french toast and a bowl of fruit for my… friend, here. With, uh… coffee, I guess. Whatever’s already brewed.”

“Comin’ right up.” Lazy Susan turned and hurried away to go turn his order in and presumably go get the coffee pot.

“Friend, hm?” Bill’s tone was almost as jovial as Lazy Susan’s had been, but it sent a distinctly different, more frigid chill down Dipper’s spine. “Interesting word choice.”

The sound that worked its way out of Dipper’s throat had to have been the most strangled noise of confusion and terror that had ever been uttered. It only seemed to amuse Bill more.

“Come now,” he taunted in an almost affectionate tone, “Use your words, Pine Tree. Where’s that eloquence you’re so proud of?”

Before Dipper could articulate his thoughts and make his tongue cooperate long enough to say them, Lazy Susan returned with their drinks. She put the glass of orange juice in front of Dipper before turning to pour a cup of coffee for Bill. Dipper reached forward to curl his hands around the glass of orange juice, taking a sip and wetting his throat to steady himself. Bill, unsurprisingly, attempted to take a sip of the coffee without adding any creamer or sugar to it.

There was a brief flare of what felt like comeuppance when the demon made a face and glared at the liquid in his cup, until that glare was directed at Dipper and he scrambled to grab one of the little creamer packets, pushing it toward Bill, “Add that and stir it in. You might need two, depending.”

Almost as soon as the creamer went into the coffee, the glare fell off of Bill’s face into a mixture of confusion, intrigue, and delight. Dipper wasn’t sure why until he glanced at the coffee and realized that the demon hadn’t realized the coloration of it would change.

As if this situation couldn’t get any _more_ surreal.

“Wh--” Dipper swallowed heavily, “Why are you _here_?”

Bill didn’t even look up from where he was delightedly stirring the nondairy creamer into the coffee, watching the swirls of darker brown disappear into a lighter color. “Because _you’re_ here, little mouse.” He waved one gloved hand idly toward Dipper, “Isn’t that how hunting games go? The hunter has to eventually be where the hunted is, to win?” The smirk that split his face at that moment was enough to send another instinctual, terrified shudder down Dipper’s spine. He felt like a cornered animal, with the demon so close. “I do rather _prefer_ winning.”

Satisfied that the coloration wasn’t going to change any more, Bill took another sip of the coffee, letting out a thoughtful hum as he analyzed the new taste. Dipper couldn’t help but notice that Bill had seemingly realized how food and drink consumption worked now. It was more unsettling than anything else, since it indicated he’d had the new body long enough to figure out how things worked.

The fact that Dipper could never remember this body before notwithstanding. _Don't trust what you remember._

He steeled his nerves and let out a breath, looking down at his orange juice and trying to dispel the feeling of being so small, like a bug about to be crushed. If Bill was parading himself about as a human and somehow remaining inconspicuous, then-- he was in public, there were people all around, he wouldn’t actually _do _anything, would he?__

The tense silence was broken at least a little bit when Lazy Susan returned with their food. Dipper tried to ignore the dream demon (who let out a few delighted crows about the french toast being _triangularly cut_ ) and focus on his food, managing a few bites of his toast and sopping up some of the gooey egg yolk with it. If he didn’t look up he was almost able to pretend the too-excited form sitting across from him actually _was_ Mabel. 

He sincerely wished that Mabel was with him, at that moment. It would make things easier. 

It wasn’t until a gloved hand entered his peripheral vision that he was forced to acknowledge his brunch guest, to let out a dismayed sound when the demon stole a few pieces of his bacon. The teeth that tore them apart were too sharp to be human. He bit back a few complaints, still with that deliberately horrible feeling that he was about to get jumped, and let out a nervous squeak when Bill idly waved a hand and a new clump of bacon strips appeared where the old one had been. 

“Why couldn’t you have just made one for yourself?” Dipper found himself asking before he could stop himself. His eyes were locked on the newly created bacon strips, a furrow in his eyebrows. _Not touching those now._

“Didn’t know what it was supposed to taste like? Come on, use your head, Pine Tree.” Bill arched an eyebrow, amusement eschewing from every perfectly attended pore on his probably-stolen body. “Not sure I did make it the right way, actually. _May~_ be you should avoid those pieces.” 

_No flipping duh._ But despite the logical words bouncing around in his brain, Dipper could feel irritation pulsing through his veins as he realized, damnit, now he _had_ to eat at least one. Just to show that he wasn’t afraid of this situation. 

Even though… yeah, he totally was. He was terrified and he couldn’t pin down why. Bill arguably hadn’t even done anything yet. 

_Don’t trust what you remember._ The words from the book hidden up inside his sweater popped into his mind again and made his stomach flip, even while he scowled and grabbed one of the pieces of magically replaced bacon. This was incredibly stupid, and he knew it. But he had to see. 

He tore the piece he had grabbed in half with his teeth, chewing and swallowing without letting up on his deliberate glower toward the demon. The amusement was still dripping off of every bat of the too-long eyelashes of Bill’s uncovered eye as he watched. “You don’t scare me.” Dipper asserted after swallowing, washing down the food with his orange juice. 

“It doesn’t take much to bait the mousetrap, does it, little mouse?” Bill asked in response, lacing his fingers together and resting his chin on his interwoven hands, elbows resting on the table. His smile was an odd mixture of lazily manic and -- yeah, that was a disconcerting amount of _fondness_. “I hope you enjoyed the cheese.” Without any further words, he let out a low, indulgent chuckle and pushed to his feet, tossing a small lump of what looked like pure gold onto the table, straightening his hat on his head as he swept away from Dipper. 

It was then that the acidic burn of bile made itself apparent, jolting from his stomach, up his esophagus, burning at the back of his nasal cavity and seeming to press out from even his tear ducts. Dizziness muddled his eyesight and he gripped the table for support, breathing heavily and still feeling that itching burn creeping further and further away from the central spot occupied by his stomach. Everything around him took on a bluish tint to it, flickering like fire. 

Hands quaking as though he were suddenly afflicted with Alzheimer's, he managed to drag out his journal, ripping one of the pages as he flipped to the one with the bookmark tucked between it. The blue tint to everything was shifting to a more reddish one, liquidy and thick and _oh,_ he was bleeding, his tear ducts were malfunctioning and his throat was bleeding and _god_ he was stupid. 

The pen dragged across the page, he couldn’t feel his hands, was that recognizably a triangle? He couldn’t see worth a damn anymore. He could barely think straight. Couldn’t hold his hands steady enough to write even the four letters it would take to write ‘Bill’. He only barely managed to stop his bookmark from skittering out from between the pages and falling to the floor to be lost forever. 

_You are being **hunted.**_

Triangle. _Hopefully_. It probably took up most of the page.

The world pitched to one side, the ground, blurred and tinted red and blue, both wet and bloody and dry and crackling with fiery heat, approached his head at an alarming speed -- 

Someone let out a small shriek of terror --

Nothing. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> CPYPCBP EBVRMFIFNV LB T SLARM. [Ceasar-Ceasar-Atbash]


	6. Tock

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I will NOT be completing this story by June 4th. As flipping amazing as that would be, I don't think I can juggle working four to six days a week on retail, writing the good majority of this story that remains, and also maintaining my sanity. 
> 
> That said, I have a job now! So please be aware my writing will slow down quite a lot. I do still plan on continuing this story, since this is my "break all the rules" story, but writing has to pull back into 'recreational' mode again. I don't want to feel like I'm working while writing these chapters.
> 
> Huge shout out and thank you to levy120 on tumblr for the fic rec and the motivational kick in the ass I needed to get back to writing this.
> 
>  
> 
> MVG VTK QP WWOSGWURBBI BXHWBGG. [Vigenere]

Three seventeen AM. A sense of deja vu coursed through his veins as he woke up, in a cold sweat and every breath seeming to send an icy chill down his windpipe. He pressed one hand to his forehead, trying to force down the shivery overheating feeling, wheezing with every deep breath. “Shit.” he muttered into the darkness, turning his head to one side to peer at the clock as it shifted from 3:17 to 3:18.

There was a soft groaning sound and his eyes were drawn to the shifting of his twin, who was pushing herself into a sitting position.

“Dip-dop? Rr’yoo okay?” her words were slurred, and she was bringing a hand up to rub at her eyes blearily. A jolt of nervous guilt made Dipper bite at his lip hard enough for the sting to feel like he had managed to break skin. “‘nother nightmare?”

“I’m fine.” he forced his voice to be soft and even, watching her yawn strongly enough to arch her back into it, “Go back to sleep, sis.”

“You’re gonna sleep more too, right?” she didn’t lie back down immediately, blinking at him in the darkness. When he didn’t answer, she gave a loud sigh and slipped out of her bed, walking over and plopping herself down next to him without fanfare. She pushed him to scoot over so she could curl up beside him, poking his nose sleepily, “You are _getting_ a full night’s sleep. I decree it.”

“Yeah…” he managed an uncertain grin, relaxing a bit. “Okay.”

“Promise.” she ordered him, “Promise you’ll try.”

“Yeah.” he nodded slightly, leaning his forehead forward against hers. “I promise.”

“Doop.” she poked his nose gently again, before letting out a deep breath and closing her eyes again.

“Boop.” he murmured in response, leaning forward to press chapped lips to her nose before letting his own eyes close. If she was this determined to help him get back to sleep, then he had to at least make an effort towards doing so.

Slipping back towards dreams was easier with Mabel’s heartbeat next to his own, a reference point for his own heartbeat to slow down to match. There was an odd, pleasant sense of deja vu about curling up with Mabel -- they hadn’t shared a bed after a nightmare since they were… four? It felt like they’d done it sooner than that, but that… that had to be right. Right?

No matter how hard he tried, though, no matter how calm and steady and regular his heart rate and breathing became, sleep wouldn’t return.

After a long few moments, he finally had to open his eyes and admit, at least within the confines of his own mind, that he wouldn’t be sleeping again. He had given it his best shot but hadn’t been able to do it. His heart picked up its irregular beat again, not strong enough to alert Mabel out of her own doze but strong enough to keep him aware of it; for a long moment, he turned his head toward the ceiling and focused on the unsteady th-thump-thum-thump-thu-thump of it.

He waited until the weight of Mabel’s arm looped over his side was that of full sleep again, before carefully shimmying out from under her. Promise or not he wasn’t about to hang around in bed without anything to do and without being able to sleep.

He padded across the floor to their window, pushing it open carefully to keep Mabel from waking up, before crawling out onto the ledge and finding a decent spot to lay back on. Out from under the ceiling, he felt a very small, very slight feeling of being trapped in an elaborate cage finally start to slip away. It didn’t dissipate completely, but it brought his breathing a bit easier.

He wondered what he had dreamed.

Time dragged by in inches, the air around him growing colder as dawn approached and silver light began to line the horizon. For a few more moments, he let the cool air wash over his skin. Somehow, he felt like he was growing more feverish, despite the chill.

He was tempted to climb back in through the window, but the light spreading across the horizon was shifting from silvery to lilac, and rose, and a gentle fiery orange color that stilled his thoughts long enough to linger. It’d been ages since he’d sat and watched a sunrise just for the sake of watching a sunrise.

He scrubbed a hand across his face, digging his fingers into his tear ducts. Sleep deprivation made him sentimental, it seemed. Still…

“You promised you’d try to sleep again.”

The shoulder that bumped into his and the wild mess of brown curls that rested against his shoulder, cascading down his back just as it did down his twin’s, brought his attention away from the sky. Mabel was still obviously half asleep, resting her cheek against the curve of his shoulder and relaxing against him until he shifted to accommodate her better. There was an easy familiarity about this that made him feel guilty. She wasn’t upset… just worried.

“I did try.” he murmured, apologetically, “I just couldn’t.”

“You’ve been having issues sleeping for like… forever.” she grumbled, sticking her lower lip out in a pout, “I wish I could do something to make it stop.”

“You and me both, sis.” he wrapped an arm around her shoulders, grimacing, “Sometimes it feels like I can’t even remember what day it is.”

“June fourth.” the words were squeaked out around a yawn that trembled the entire way down Mabel’s spine. Dipper felt the chill deepen, his mind sending off warning flares that that couldn’t be right, but pushed it away while she continued, “You know I’ll always be around to help you when you stumble, right?”

He wrapped an arm around her shoulders, leaning his head until his own cheek was pressed against the top of hers, and made a point to obnoxiously bite down on some of her hair with exaggerated ‘om nom nom’ sounds. She giggled sleepily and shoved her hand against his chest until he spat her hair back out. For a few seconds, the silence stretched between them.

Dipper knew he should answer her, acknowledge that she was there when he needed help… but.

But, but, but. It always came down to that word.

He couldn’t even place the reason why he felt the underlying, surging doubt coursing through his veins. He was just having nightmares. They were a hassle, but he couldn’t even remember them once he woke up, it wasn’t like it was something _extremely_ detrimental to his health.

So why did it feel like, even though his problem was a relatively small one, it still wasn’t one that anyone could help him with?

* * *

Wendy, as the years had gone by, had developed in a very particular way. The twenty year old had gone from a gangly but cute teenager and, taking very much after her father and brothers, had accumulated a great deal of muscle definition despite her more lithe frame in a very small amount of time. Watching her work, Dipper had found, was incredibly satisfying.

He was sure she could pick him up and bend him in half if she wanted to, without even really trying. And while he wasn’t _that_ heavy, compared to some, he wasn’t a twig, either. Despite their relationship having developed to be almost entirely platonic, he still adored her and thought she was a unique kind of gorgeous.

Added onto that, she had indulged herself two summers ago and ‘conveniently’ declined to tell her father she was getting sleeve tattoos as soon as she was eighteen and allowed to get them without parental permission required. The flowering swirls of wreathed twigs tracing their way up her arms were almost hypnotizing. Added onto the fact that they accentuated the biceps and triceps that hypnotized on their own whenever she flexed,  and he usually couldn’t look away while she was working in a tank top.

(Mabel still teased him for having a _thing_ for “punk lumberjacks”. He argued that it was a pure aesthetic appreciation and he no longer had a _thing_ for Wendy.

 _Sure you do, Dippin’ Dots_ , he could already hear Mabel’s voice in his head. The fact nonetheless remained, he had a _thing_ more determined to keep their friendship than any romantic interest _thing_ that may or may not still occasionally try to crop up.)

That morning could hardly count as an exception to the ‘hypnotized by the sleeve tats’ club. Dipper was proud to be its president.

He did his best not to stare, usually, but he felt particularly inclined to admire it today. Knowing that she was going off to college when the summer was over left a bitter taste in the back of his mouth, but that didn’t change the laugh that bubbled up in his throat when she locked him in a headlock and shoved his hat further down on his head.

He wrestled against her arm, tracing the lines of ink spanning her skin with his fingertips while he twisted out of her grip, almost immediately being re-twisted back into a hold. For a brief second, something akin to panic flared up in the back of his mind, and he squirmed free much more quickly than he usually would escape from one of their playful wrestling games.

If Wendy noticed, she didn't comment on it. "Wanna help me with the back-stock today, Dipper? I've gotta haul a bunch of crap out of storage for Stan."

"Are you asking me to help you or requesting I do it for you?" He made his tone jocular, despite the faint lingering sense of having _escaped._

"Help me, smartass. Entertain me while I lug around heavy boxes and shit." She shoved his hat down over his head again and earned a soft chuckle in return.

Trailing outside after her by a couple of steps, he let his gaze pass along her arms again and admired the ripple of muscle under her painted skin. As though she knew he was watching again (she probably did, she always knew what he was thinking), she raised her arms up over her head to stretch them, turning the papery pastel pink flower petals toward the sun. They contrasted against her wild fiery hair with a softness that was so rarely seen on her. The woody thatch and wreathing designs that covered where the petals didn't bloom made him think of woodsmoke and the toughness of tree bark. It never failed to amaze him that her skin was still smooth when it looked like it should bite and scrape across his skin where he touched.

In a way, the tattoos were perfect for her. Rough and smooth, gentle and strong, welcoming and wild. A touch of femininity clinging to arms stronger than most males. He ducked his head when she idly swung her arm around his shoulders.

“I’m really going to miss this place.” she hummed, almost to herself.

Moments like this, he could almost palpably feel the reminder that he ought to cherish these memories. The end of the summer was still hurtling toward them much too quickly.

“We’re all going to miss you more.” he said, somehow keeping his voice even. A challenge, not a whimper.

* * *

_(It was weird, he almost felt like there was an echoing, broken record of agonized screaming happening at the back of his thoughts, repeating in tone and pitch and scale over and over again with no pause between the recording ending and starting up again. What was even weirder was that it almost sounded like his own voice doing the screaming.)_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 22-18-16-8 23-11-12-17-10-22 16-4-14-8 2-18-24 7-8-22-19-8-21-4-23-8 8-17-18-24-10-11 23-18 7-18 4-17-2-23-11-12-17-10. [Ceasar-A1Z26]


	7. Tick

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> WQRZXZ IOMA CVE BJO TKVSHV. [Vigenere]

The back-stock for the gift shop was usually stored in the basement, which could only be accessed anymore by going out the front doors and around to the back of the Shack, then going down through the cellar doors. The inside stairway to the basement had been blocked off by so much accumulated _stuff_ over the years, and Stan had no itching desire to go down and clear some of it out, and no motivation to shove the twins down there to do it for him. While Dipper was thankful to avoid having to do that, it was still rather annoying to have to go around the entire Shack for every trip to get more stock.

Digging through the piles of junk that was going to be sold was a long-since-familiar task, since Wendy usually got roped into doing it every couple of days anyway, and he was usually dragged along whenever the twins were there for the summers. Despite his ‘noodle arms’, as Mabel called them, he really enjoyed the work. Wendy would challenge him to make up a story about whatever weird items they would find and chatting like that would fill up the time while they worked.

"What about this one?" She asked, holding up a battered mask with bent orange and black feathers sticking out of it in various angles. Dipper hopped over a small pile of junk to get to her, helping straighten out some of the feathers to make it a bit more sell-able.

"Six hundred year old Native American spirit dance mask," he grinned, "it's a Fox, so probably a trickster spirit. Took over the last body that wore it and fell off while the poor sap was _marking his territory._ "

Wendy snickered and shifted the mask up to her own face. It fit far better over her nose than Dipper thought was fair.

"Look, I'm a trickster now."  She stuck out her tongue. "Gotta do something unexpected."

"You're beyond expectation as is, Wendigo." He smiled a bit, “Guys in Portland aren’t going to know what to do with themselves. You’re badass and beautiful. Hell, you’ll probably make quite a few girls question their sexuality too.”

“You still have that crush on me, dude?” she tilted her head, the feathers on the mask tilting with her and one of them tickling his nose, but her mouth was curved into a softer, sweeter smile, “Because if not I have to wonder what makes you say that flowery crap. It’s too sweet to not be flirting.”

“It crops up again every now and then, sue me.” He snickered under his breath, rubbing at his nose to fight off the itch caused by the feather. “Doesn’t matter really, in the end. I don’t expect it to go anywhere, anymore. You’re my best friend, first and foremost.”

“Then I think I know what my unexpected trickster act is going to be.” She reached up to tug on his bangs, before lightly pulling him forward. Dipper felt his heart slam into his throat and felt time slow. In the shadowy half-light of the single light bulb above, the colors of the mask looked more vibrant than they probably would in actual sunlight, and Wendy’s green-brown eyes held a kind of wildness in the shadows.

Her lips brushed against his, soft and sweet, barely there for a second before she pulled away. The amazing spark he expected and had hoped for for so long, didn’t come; the cracked wood of the mask was pressed against his nose and the dust motes in the air were starting to sting his eyes. She pulled back and smiled at him, and he smiled back despite the vague sense of disappointment settling over his thoughts.

“Okay?”

“Not really.” he shrugged, before lightly reaching up to pull the mask off of her face. “Kind of… underwhelming, I guess. Thanks anyway, though.”

“Well, hey, now if Mabel ever teases you about still crushing on me, you can at least say you’ve been there, kissed that.” She raised a hand and made a waving gesture, as though shooing all the unpleasant disappointment away. For a moment, Dipper couldn’t help but absolutely adore her all over again. Even when kissing her didn’t turn out to be as magical as he had expected, she was still nonchalant and willing to make his moment.

Was it possible to be in love with someone without needing to be _in love_ with them? Obviously. He had the perfect example right in front of him.

She shoved a few more bits and pieces of junk into the box she was planning on carrying up, grabbing and putting the mask on the top of it all, and then shoving his shoulder lightly as she walked back over to the stairs up to the cellar doors. “Grab about another box worth of stuff, okay? I’ll meet you back in the gift shop to do actual stocking.”

"Okay, I'll be right up." He threw a sun hat with enough accuracy to land it on her retreating head and grinned at her laughter, before going back to digging in the piles of junk for things they could stick a price sticker on. Most of the piles of stuff were shallow enough that he could stand in one pile to reach taller ones behind it, and he'd long since gotten over worrying about 'damaging merchandise'. If it could be sold, no matter the level of damage, either Grunkle Stan or Mabel would find a way to market it and get it sold.

Standing in one pile of junk near the back wall, he felt something close around his ankles, clamping down in a vice-like grip. It felt like hands.

He looked down.

It _was_ hands. A pair of mismatched ones, that ended at the wrist. One had a wedding ring digging into his skin.

Even as the initial concern spiraled into panic, he noticed more of the strange unattached hands crawling toward him from the nooks and crannies in the piles of junk. He made to move, to shake them off and run, but they launched at him and held him in place with seemingly impossible strength.

Four of them grabbed his arms, tugging them behind his back and locking them in place with the efficiency of a straitjacket and a grip that would surely leave bruises. Another three grabbed various places on his shirt, jerking him to the one open area of the back wall and pulling him until he was pressed against it. Two became a clamp over his neck, not enough to crush his windpipe but enough to hold his head still. The two around his ankles were joined by two more, to become similar clamps holding him in place against the battered wood.

He strained against them, feeling an icy terror starting in his veins, realizing the half light had faded into muted grays and a low chuckle was emanating from somewhere in front of him. From behind one of the piles of junk, a faint golden glow coming from the single, long-lashed visible eye, stepped out what had to be a hoax. It was unmistakably Bill Cipher, but Dipper couldn't wrap his head around the fact that Bill had a human body.

The sharp, razor-like grin that Bill was directing at him was incredibly unnerving.

“Well~” The demon stepped to stand right in front of him, knocking his hat off of his head with one flick of a wrist and then grabbing hold of his bangs, tangling that hand into his hair, “Isn’t this convenient? Frees up my hands quite well. Glasses sure knows how to accumulate fun little toys, hm?”

“What-- the actual-- _fuck_ \--” the words were hard to grit out with the clamp over his throat and the sharp sting from his scalp bringing tears to the corners of his eyes.

“It was kind of like this, actually.” Bill continued, without paying him any mind, “You making the deal with me. Well, kind of. When Red kissed you, you reacted differently.” his hand tightened in Dipper’s hair, dislodging some of the clumps of it from his scalp and pulling a cross between a whine and a yelp from Dipper’s throat. “Got all upset about her leaving all over again! Then you pretty much sold yourself to me, for the chance to keep the summer from ending… how _romantic._ ”

“I-- don’t--”

“Made your mistake, though,” Bill’s face was inching in toward his, and he was practically spitting the words, “You never bargained about keeping your memory for this. Extremely fun for me, watching you lose it every time you die, watching the fire burn out from your soul and _then_ , oh _then_ my dear Pine Tree, watching your soul reach the end of its chain, thinking it’s free… and watching the world reset to the beginning of the morning, your soul resettling into your body. Three hours and seventeen minutes to settle completely, to reintegrate -- and then you _wake up_ without any idea what terrors you’ve just gone through, and I get to plan my next way to end you all over again. It’s _delightful_.”

His free hand rose to wave idly in the air, a ball of blue fire forming between the fingers and flickering ominously in the darkness, “Should I use fire, this time? You’ve reacted to it so strongly before. Or should I rip out your intestines… oh, and feed them to you? Force you to become an ouroboros of intestine! That might be fun.”

He hummed and glanced at a corner, a pile full of junk that had started decaying into an actual mound of compost. “I could bury you alive, leave you unable to move and watch you slowly run out of air… or I could drown you, watch the water flood your lungs and drag you down.” He left the fireball floating in the air, and traced one finger from the top of Dipper’s forehead, along his nose to the tip of his chin, down his neck, between his shoulderblades and down his torso, “Or I could even cut you in half, down this line. Cauterize the wound, nothing would fall out, but you’d be split down the middle. One arm, one leg, one ear, one _eye_ to each side.”

The terror surged and sent Dipper into an attempted flail, struggling against the binds that held him in place. His shoulder dislocated with the pressure he pushed on it to pull free, the hands only tightening and forcing him still. He felt his ankles both pop out of place as well, and the pressure around his neck increased. Despite the newfound pain in various parts of his body, the panic still ruled and sent him into frenzied jerks, with increasingly futile results.

“ _You’re fucking insane!_ ” he wheezed, eyes wild, “I-I’d never--”

“Oh, but you did.” Bill tutted, “And I’d watch your tongue when you speak to me. I _own you_ now. You are mine to do with as I please, in as many ways and as many times as I wish. You agreed to our terms…” the hand tangled in his hair jerked, and a muted scream died in Dipper’s throat at the agonizing feeling of scalp tearing, coupled with an increased pressure of the hands around his throat. “...you agreed to be my _entertainment_ , in return for a summer that never ends.”

“ _Li--ar--! Fuck--ing li--ar--!_ ” that couldn’t be his own voice. A distant part of Dipper felt almost as though he were watching the scene unfold, and the terrified, high pitched, venomous _whine_ of the words was so feral, so unlike him. He felt himself baring his teeth in an equally animalistic snarl, straining himself more against the hands digging into his skin.

“I warned you.” Bill’s mouth curled into a savage, gleeful grin, and his free hand pressed at the hinges to Dipper’s jaw, forcing it open. The hand that had been tangled in his hair slipped free, and the thumb and forefinger clamped down on Dipper’s tongue, pulling it forward and out of his mouth.

“I’d say the cat’s got your tongue,” Bill sneered, leaning forward. His teeth -- why were his teeth so sharp? There was no logical reason for that-- spread into a razor-sharp smile, “but then again… curiosity killed it. Curiosity kills a lot of things.”

He surged forward, sinking those razor-sharp teeth into the fleshy base of Dipper’s tongue, pulling forth a stream of blood that stained both of their faces. The agonized scream that tore from Dipper’s throat didn’t quite drown out the pleased sigh from Bill’s, while his tongue was spat onto the floor nearby. A rogue hand scurried forward and grabbed it, immediately becoming just as stained as the rest of Dipper’s face.

Another scream bubbled up, gurgling through the flood of blood that he couldn’t spit out or swallow down fast enough. The demon’s tongue and teeth were immediately in his mouth again, lapping up the blood, and -- oh _god_ , Bill was _kissing_ him.

“Delicious.” the demon purred against his mouth, “Absolutely delicious. Your terror, your frenzy, your panic… Delectable.” the blood soaked hands were tearing at his hair again, digging into his skin and forcing his eyes to stay open despite the tears flowing freely down his cheeks now. “And it’s _mine._ All of it. All of _you. Mine._ ”

Vaguely, dizzily, Dipper thought he heard voices shouting his name, thumping coming from the cellar doors. There… there was a lot of color around, for being in Bill’s realm...

“Now…” Bill pulled back, pulling Dipper’s head back and locking it in place with another of the rogue hands around his hair, “Choke on your own life force. We’ll see how this affects you when you wake up, hm?”

With a cackle and a flurry of blue fire, the demon disappeared. The sound of wood splintering was barely enough to register in Dipper’s hazy brain, as he struggled to swallow enough of the blood coursing from his ruined tongue to get a breath in edgewise. Feet clattering down the stairs, Grunkle Stan yelling, Mabel screaming, Wendy heaving something down onto the hand that had his tongue - _\- oh god, his tongue_ \--

He was falling forward, gasping and choking on the blood that was splattering the ground beneath him. Vague gurgling sounds died in his throat and he raised one hand, making frantic gestures like he was holding a pencil, _he needed to write, needed to--_

A pen was thrust into his hand, Mabel had his journal. She helped him flip it open, blood staining the pages as his hand shook and he found a free one, beyond a page that was just as frantically covered in scrawlings, one set a dented triangle. Some part of him had already done this.

He managed. Somehow, he managed to write a few disjointed sentence fragments despite his panicking and the adrenaline that sent even more blood pouring from his lips.

_Deal with Bill_   
_I’m ‘entertainment’, summer doesn’t end_   
_I DIE, DAY REPEATS_   
_can’t remember at the beginning of the days_   
_3:17???? if it starts at midnight_   
_He tore out my tongue and_

His hand shook even more. It took every ounce of his strength to write the next words.

_**frenched** me?????_

He felt arms wrapping around him, familial hands, holding him in place, friendly, but-- he couldn’t take it, he had to get them to stop, had to get away, he had to --

He had to die.

If he had gone through this day multiple times, then clearly he was returned to whole somehow when it reset. Bill hadn’t been holding any mutilation back, from his suggested courses of action. He couldn’t think straight from the pain, but he was cognizant enough to realize that much.

He flung an arm around, dislodging Mabel’s arms from around him. His hand fisted around the pen, and he closed his eyes tightly.

Hopefully death wasn’t too unpleasant.

He slammed the pen into his chest, between two ribs, aiming for his heart.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 21 16-25-8-25-12 11-3-21-26 3-18-18 15-24 21-10 7-3-11 23-15-15-26 3-1-10-21-15-16. [Atbash-Ceasar-A1Z26]


	8. Tock

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> PVCD VOP IHI RSXQG DHUGDAST YY MQEK BKQAHOKKSU? [Vigenere]

Dying wasn’t pleasant.

Nightmares were just as unpleasant.

Dying in one’s nightmare was just plain _cruel_.

Subsequently falling off the bed and slamming into the floor hard enough to have the wind knocked out of him was mostly icing on the cake. Having his journal knocked off of his bedstand and landing on his nose was the cherry on top.

What a _wonderful_ start to what was sure to be a _perfect_ day.

He groaned in annoyance when he heard Mabel giving a sleepy giggle from her side of the room, throwing a loose, balled up sock at her bed and aiming high enough to arc it right into her lap. Her hushed giggles shifted into a dismayed yelp within half a second of it landing.

"Dipper! _Gross!_ " Her reprimand was pitched low enough to avoid any wrath from Grunkle Stan. She lobbed the sock back at him, aiming for his face. He used his journal to block it, opening it up to create more shield area and quietly snickering when the sock bounced off of the faded leather.

Loosened from the spine of the book, a garishly orange tabby-cat bookmark dropped onto his nose. He recognized it almost immediately -- it was one that Mabel had made, out of spare construction paper, which she had laminated a few years before and kept since. He grimaced in confusion at the sight of it.

“Why’ya puh--” He stopped himself in the middle of his attempted sentence, scowling and sticking his tongue out. He crossed his eyes, trying to stare at the tip of it in confusion. Why wasn’t it cooperating with him?

“Wha…?” Mabel pushed to sit up, peering down at him from over the edge of the bed.

“Kung won’ cooperaye.” he picked the bookmark up to hold it out to show her, frowning. “Why’ya puh gis in my gournyal?”

“I... didn’t. You must’ve forgotten grabbing it or something.”

“Nyo, I fhink I would have remembered grabbing your orange gabby-cat bookmark for my ownh ufe.  You havoo have been fhe one goo stick ih-ing here.”

“Well, hey, there’s an easy way to figure it out.” She rolled off the bed completely, swinging her legs down and dropping into a squat beside him, “We figure out the page that was bookmarked and based on what it was, decide who bookmarked it. I’m still betting my entire next paycheck it was you, though.” She pulled at his arm, “Come on, we can do it in the kitchen, get you something to drink. Maybe your tongue will work with you then.”

Letting his twin pull him to his feet and out of the room, he brought his free hand to rub at the hinges to his jaw. A faint scrape of stubble met his hand -- which was weird, he could have sworn he shaved the day before. His jaw ached and his tongue felt almost... numb, like it wasn't really there.

Had he bitten on it when he fell out of bed? Maybe there'd been an intense pain and then it went numb or something. He pinched at it with two fingers and tugged lightly to make sure it was still full and attached and--

Panic surged up and down his spine, momentarily cutting off his bodily responses and leaving him feeling a strange, disconnected sort of feeling. It nearly sent him tumbling down the stairs, almost bringing Mabel with him. She thankfully caught his weight before he could stumble far, grunting in surprise and dismay before helping him hobble much more slowly down the rest of the stairs.

"Yeesh, warn me next time you want to sweep me off my feet, bro." She muttered the words, an annoyed tone marring their jocular content, as they stepped into the lower landing.

"Forry." He mumbled back, his heart pounding at the base of his skull and fighting off a sudden wave of dizziness.

Adrenaline pulsed through his veins and the sudden desire to run, to escape, battled an equal, ridiculous urge to shove Mabel's arm away. She dragged his suddenly tense form to the table and pushed him to sit down on one of the chairs, before turning to the fridge and pulling out the container of freshly made Mabel Juice.

He accepted a glass, sipping at it and focusing on the cold glass against his suddenly feverish skin. The chill against his tongue seemed to help too, and swallowing the drink forced his breathing back into a regular state.

"So," Mabel murmured as she sat down across from him, keeping her voice down to hopefully avoid waking anyone else up. "Another nightmare?"

For a few seconds, his mind refused to work with him. He swallowed another gulp of the intensely sugary drink, hoping it would help his brain wake up and decide to function. "I gueth."

"You 'guess'?"

"I can'd really remember whad I dream'd. I gueth id had to be thgcary enough do wake me up." He shrugged awkwardly. "Feld like I died thomehow I guessh? Can you do that? Die in dreamsh?"

Mabel's frown intensified as she stared at him, making him squirm a bit under her scrutiny. He took another gulp of the drink, feeling it almost burn at the back of his throat.

"I don't think it's normal to actually _die_ in a dream, bro-bro..."

"It isn't." The gruff voice brought both twins' attention to the kitchen doorway, where the incredibly familiar sight of Stanford Pines, clad in boxers and a stained old wife-beater t-shirt, cut an imposing figure for half past three AM. He was clearly not pleased with being woken up at roughly three in the morning, as evidenced by the scowl hanging off his jowls as he took the third chair at the table. Dipper swallowed another gulp of juice in a nervous reaction, the sugar buzzing in his stomach almost as much as his growing nerves.

"Be chased, sure. See somethin' else die, of course. But actually dying yourself? Not likely. That's a dangerous sign." Stan held up a hand and shook his head when Mabel offered him the pitcher of cavity-inducing death-by-sugar drink.

"Dangerous?" The concern was audible in Mabel's voice. Dipper kept his eyes trained on his glass.

"Could mean your dream's been invaded, is all I'm saying." Stan rubbed wearily at the corners of his eyes, "Considering you woke up by _falling out of bed..._ "

Dipper winced guiltily into his drink, irrationally feeling as though he personally was at fault. He missed the grumpy warning look Mabel shot at their aging great uncle, and the mildly irritated but mostly tired look she got back.

“ _Not_ the point,” Mabel eventually shook her head. “We came down here for a reason and that was to get Mabel Juice and figure out the mystery of Mabel’s Bookmark.”

“Doesn’t sound like much of a mystery.”

“Shut _up_ , Grunkle Stan.” She reached over to grab at Dipper's wrist lightly, rubbing circles into his knuckles (when did they become so white against the glass?) and pressing forward anyway, “Come on, Dipper, let’s see if we can figure out which page the bookmark was on. With or without help."

He made his hands unlock from around  glass, pulling his journal back over toward himself and opening it to roughly where he thought the bookmark had been. Several of the pages were bent and slightly crumpled and torn, one bearing a rip down really half of the page. While he wouldn't be surprised by this normally--he got into all sorts of scraps with and without Mabel--the torn pages also had small splatterings of crimson red lining them, looking almost... fresh.

"What the hell...?" Mabel grabbed onto his arm and squeezed, though if she was looking for or offering reassurance was hard to say.

Dipper flipped through a few more pages. May 27th, 28th, 29th, 30th, 31st, June 1st... the further he got, the more red that stained the pages and the shakier his hands became. Mabel's grip was almost becoming enough to bruise.

The two pages when he first reached June 4th came and the twins stopped in their tracks. Spread across the pages were a cacophony of scribbles, in different color pens and with varying levels of pressure and neatness, and an immense spatter of red right on the center, misting out toward the edges.

A messy triangle taking up a good portion of the first page held their gaze for a long few moments. They both knew the significance of triangles.

Trembling, Mabel pulled the journal from his suddenly slack hands and started scanning the chicken scratch entries already there. She mumbled their words as she read, while he sat still and continued staring sightlessly at the cracked wood of the table, terror coursing through him with such strange intensity for a reason he couldn't pinpoint.

He didn't notice Grunkle Stan moving from his seat to stand behind the two of them, didn't notice the grim, darkened expression on the older man's face.

"Deal with Bill," Mabel said, her voice trembling. "I die, day repeats... Can't remember at the beginning of the days..."

Her voice stuttered to a stop, and Dipper finally turned his head to look at her. She laid the journal flat against the table and pointed, trembling, to a few of the last lines -- some of which were in _her own_ handwriting. He focused on the one in his own first.

_He tore out my tongue and **frenched** me?????_

He had to fight down the urge to throw up before he could tear his eyes away from those words, and focus them on the ones Mabel was still pointing to, the ones she apparently had written.

_Dipper is dying right beside me as I write this. He won't let anyone touch him, won't let anyone help him. He won't let anyone near the pen he just stabbed himself with._

_I don't understand why he did this, but I'm terrified for him._

_I can only hope he knows why he's doing this, and that he's right about the day "resetting". I don't want a life without my twin._

Before he could fully register his own actions, his chair had crashed to the floor behind him and he was left dry heaving into the kitchen sink, his knuckles white against the counter and Stan holding him steady.  Blind terror muffled everything he did, and he didn't feel completely attached to his own body.

Echoes of something that felt like a nightmare battered against his brain, agonized screaming playing on repeat, betrayal, stupid, _stupid_ , should never have trusted him--

"--id-- _Kid_ \-- _Dipper_!" A hand slammed between his shoulder blades and all at once Dipper realized he was somehow on the floor, curled up around himself. Mabel had pulled him into her lap and was holding him tightly while Stan crouched beside them both.

"We're going to do something about this," Stan growled as soon as he saw that Dipper was cognizant of what he was saying again. "Y'hear? You're not alone in this."

"We got you." Mabel mumbled against his hair, "You're awake now. He can't touch you. We won't let him."

Dipper trembled in her arms, latching a hand around Stan’s wrist and refusing to let go, despite the creaks of the bones within it. No matter how well Stanford Pines had aged, and no matter how strong he still was despite that age, he was still well into his eighties. If it bothered the old man, though, he didn’t let it show, his free hand pressing to Dipper’s back and into the tense, locked up muscles.

For a long few moments, they stayed like that, Mabel beginning to hum a tuneless song into his ear and Stan rubbing rough circles between his shoulderblades. Dipper forced his breathing to come slower, trying to focus on the feelings, trying to make himself believe that they were as solid as they _had_ to be, to believe Mabel’s words

_You’re awake now._

But then… why did he still feel like this was a nightmare?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 00110010001101100010110100110001001100110010110100110010001100110010000000110001001100100010110100110001001100110010110100110010001101000010110100110010001100100010000000110001001101000010110100110001001100100010110100111001001011010011001000110010001011100010111000101110001000000011001000110110001011010011100100101101001100100011001000100000001100100010110100110001001100100010110100110110001000000011001000110110001011010011010000101101001100100011011000101101001100010011011000101101001100100011001000100000001100100010110100110010001100100010110100110111 [Atbash-A1Z26-Binary]


	9. A Time Between Times

Somewhere, in a place unplagued by the annoying "requirement" of the existence of a fourth wall, Bill Cipher lounged and waited, his uncovered eye closed and floating in the seemingly endless void between universes. “Late.” he muttered, mouth twisting in displeasure, “Always late.”

“There’s no time here,” a voice answered him as a form flickered into being, lounging back just as he was on nothing, “so logically speaking, I can never _be_ late. Only absent. New game, you were white last time, so I start. Pawn to e4.”

“You’ve been absent more often than we agreed at first.” He opened his eye, frowning over toward the short, thin fingered form, already with a laptop propped on her knees and with her fingers tap-tapping across the keys. Brassy bronze colored hair seemed to glow, despite the lack of light, and a pair of rectangular glasses were perched on the girl’s nose. The chessboard that flickered into existence between them moved her first pawn into one of the center squares. “E5.” His answering move pushed his own pawn to contest hers.

“We _agreed_ that I would come here to help you as often as my outside life allows. I have physical requirements beyond maintaining the existence of your world, you know.” She rolled her eyes when he snorted, finally looking up and over the top of the laptop to stare him down, a no-nonsense look on her face. “That includes taking personal time to recuperate myself that _doesn’t_ involve writing. I’ve met with you often enough this week, and you’ve made your displeasure clear. Knight to f3.”

“Because sleeping is apparently still in your purview.” He sneered, uncrossing his legs and ‘sitting’ up straight, though there continued to be a lack of anything to support him. She continued typing, despite not looking at the screen anymore, still staring him down disapprovingly. “Don’t give me that look, kid. I’m still powerful enough to scramble your brain. Pawn to d6.”

“Says the dream demon who messed up his own Universal Chess Game five years back in his own timeline. Pawn to d4.” She snickered, as her second pawn openly contested for the center of the board. “You’re not even canon anymore, if it weren’t for me, who would even see this particular doomed branch of a timeline? By _prematurely_ blowing up that portal, you missed your chance to promote a pawn and bring back a piece as useful as a queen, dumbass. _No one_ is writing stories without the real Stanford in them, now. _I’m_ the only one even keeping your timeline in existence at this point. You’re _welcome._ ”

His skin flared red, fists clenching and dark flames forming at the edges of his fingers, his eye inverting to black corneas and red irises. He bared his teeth, which had sharpened further than even the ‘normal’ sharper than any human’s. “If you’d _hurry up_ and get this show on the road, I’d have more than enough power to maintain things on my _own._ ” He practically snarled his answering move, placing her knight in danger and opening danger to her queen if she moved it. “ _Bishop to g4._ ”

“You don’t appreciate the fine art that is crafting a story.” She turned her eyes back down, dismissive of his anger -- she’d experienced this often enough before to know that he wouldn’t risk hurting her, not when she really _was_ the only thing keeping this particular iteration of him in place. And always, she continued typing, “You told me the steps you’d need to take, and I’ve been weaving them in as it comes up. You know I’ve got the next step planned. Pawn takes e5.”

The first lost piece of the game went to her, her dismissal of the danger to her knight clear.

“You’ve only managed _two_ of the steps I told you!”

“ _You’re_ the one who proposed this plan, Cipher, stop complaining that I’m taking too long in letting you orchestrate it.” A blithe flick of her wrist formed a bottle of water out of nothing, which she raised to her lips to take a sip of, her unoccupied hand still tapping over the keys. “Besides, do you _really_ want to consume him that fast? Doing it over multiple iterations of him makes _sure_ he lives long enough to comprehend what you’ve done on all the steps, a requirement you told me about. I know what I’m doing -- calm your tits.”

“Comprehension without memory is suspect.” Bill growled, forcing himself to unclench his fists and _not_ throw a fireball to barely catch fire to her hair. He had done that once, and she hadn’t shown up in this place-that-wasn’t-a-place for over three weeks of her personal timeline; she had even blocked him off from entering her dreams, a mind-numbingly _annoying_ thing that he _still_ couldn’t figure out. _She shouldn’t have been able to do that._ He took a deep breath, before settling again, “Bishop takes f3. You lose your knight.”

“Queen takes f3, you lose your bishop. You’ve been bringing up the deal over and over again, right? Monologuing like a good and proper villain?” Her mouth curled into a faint smirk. “I’ve been keeping an eye on _Dipper’s_ side of things, too, you know. _Your_ next step is waiting for him to propose another deal. Which, if it doesn’t happen naturally in the next few chapters, will get a further _nudge_ from me.” She paused her typing, for seemingly the first time since she arrived, looking up and noting that he was staring at her incredulously.

“You’ve planned for _this long_ that he wouldn’t even _stay_ memory-wiped?” Bill was practically quivering with rage that had no good place to go. That was part of what was making this entire situation so _fun!_

“It fixes your issue of _comprehension without memory._ ” she pointed out, sneering the last words in a mocking quote from him. “Besides, he can’t even fight back properly without his memory. All this is so far is a sad trail of Dipper-corpses, barely making it inches further than the last ones from the same starting place. The Law of Diminishing Returns demands that eventually that would get boring, even to _you_ , with the mental maturity of a _five year old._ ”

“I don’t _want_ him able to fight back, I _want_ him bound, body and soul, to my use!”

“And the Binding of Consumption you told me about will _do that_.” she rolled her eyes, “Are you going to take your turn or not?”

“Pawn takes e5.” He spat the words, returning them to equal standing according to the points.

“Bishop to c4.” she went back to typing, humming softly to herself. “You told me there were seven major steps of what you would need to consume from him, of which I’ve helped you sneak through two; Sustenance and Blood, with those remaining being Tears, Pride, Flesh, Bone, all culminating in consuming his Heart. Two out of seven at this pace is not that bad.”

“Stealing some of his food to eat myself and tasting his blood is hardly a pair of difficult steps. You could have let me do them _much_ sooner. Knight to f6.”

There wasn’t even a second of hesitation between him finishing his move and her answering move, “Queen to b3.” With three simple words, she placed a second pawn under attack and he realized almost too late that she had a distinct advantage over him at that point, in both of the contests occurring between him. “Considering I can rocket you through the next four requirements in two particular steps, I’d think you should be thanking me, Cipher.”

He held his tongue for a few seconds longer than he probably should have, considering the board in front of him, forsaking one potential advantage in hopes to gain another. A bad move, considering. She wasn’t even looking at the board, still keeping her eyes locked onto her laptop screen, typing away.

“...Queen to e7.” he finally decided, curling his lips in distaste. It wasn’t the greatest move ever, but it was the best one available to him in this particular situation. He didn’t miss the pleasant smile that had formed on her face when she heard it. He could only really hope that she played against the pawn currently protecting his rook, so that he could force a Queen trade.

“Knight to c3.” she ignored the open potential to win further points in their game, glancing up at him, “You’re off your game today.”

“Shut up,” he snarled, forfeiting further points in their _other_ game with the lack of a good comeback. “You still haven’t told me the _amazing_ next step you have planned that will get me both his pride and his tears.”

“I told you, _your_ next move is waiting for him to propose a deal to get his memory back. No matter how bad the deal looks for you, you’ve got to agree to it. The game only moves forward if he has to make sacrifices to you, and considering you’re a demon, he can only do that through deals.” She pressed a keyboard shortcut to save whatever it was she had been typing, before continuing. “If he has his memory back, he’ll be more _inclined_ to make deals.”

“Pawn to c6.” He bared his teeth again, not liking the sound of having a cognizant Dipper able to fight back properly before he could fully bind him against it, despite the ringing truth to her words. The Pines family had a knack for finding advantages where there were none, and he’d much rather have them not contesting him at all. Nonetheless, she was the one in primary control of the situation, at the moment. “That still doesn’t explain how I get his pride and his tears.”

“Tears is easy.” she waved a hand dismissively again, “It will come when you break his pride. And the easiest way to break his pride is to restore it, then take it away again. Thus, give him the feeling he may be able to gain proper footing again, a proper chance to fight back -- and then make him choose to bow. Bishop to g5.”

“Choose to _bow?_ ” He nearly openly recoiled, her nonplussed tone as though such a thing was _easy_ taking him by surprise. “You _are_ aware of how fond the Pines family are of fighting impossible foes, aren’t you? He’ll never bow his head willingly!”

“You’re the one who claims to know how to manipulate your pieces, Cipher. I’m not seeing any of that capability lately. You’ve been on the defensive since before I ever started interacting with you.”

The fact that she was forcing him to defend tempo after tempo in their chess game made his stomach twist unpleasantly. He grit his teeth through the muttering of his next move, “Pawn to b5.”

Seeing her smile widen was the worst indication he could ever have gotten. Her words were almost horrifically unneeded.

“Bad move.” She closed her laptop with a snap, turning her eyes to rest on him again and doubling the intense feel of being on the defensive. One day, he swore he would find out _how_ she could do that, twist his instincts and manipulate him into metaphorical stumbles. She was _only human_ , there was _no logical reason_ for her to understand others well enough to do that, let alone understand _him_ , a _demon_ , well enough to do that! “Knight takes b5.”

“You--!” his skin blazed red again, his eye locked on the board between them with disbelief at her nerve. If she would just _defend_ against him, once, instead of continuing her attack-- “Pawn takes knight!”

It was only after the pieces moved accordingly, responding to his words, that he realized his second blunder in as many turns. It was the most logical move available to him, but at the same time it _opened him up to a check._ She was _still_ keeping him on the defensive.

“Bishop takes b5. Check.” her smile was almost _kindly,_ searing across his vision as further insult, as though she were playing a novice at the game of strategy and manipulation of forces. “Methinks you’re getting a bit too worked up to think clearly, Mr. Cipher. You should have forced me to trade queens.”

Yeah, well, what Bill _should_ have done, it was _becoming irritatingly clear_ , was to _never have crossed paths with this meatbag at all_. He forced himself to sit back, closing his visible eye and sucking air in through flared nostrils, forcing himself to slow his heart rate and calm down. When he opened his eye again, he was able to look at the board in front of him with a bit more clarity and critical thinking skills available to him. “B-Knight to d7.” It was the most logical way to defend against the check, at the moment. If he managed to stay calm, he may even be able to shove her onto the defensive, at least for a moment, enough time to catch up and regain advantage. “So I let him gain a slight advantage to maintain my own?”

“You could look at it that way, if you’d like. It depends on how good you think Dipper is at strategic positioning and sacrifice, and how good you view yourself at those things. Queenside castle.” She took another sip of her water bottle, still smiling that damnable smile. Normally a defensive move, he could immediately see that since her King had been in no direct danger, she had intended it as an offensive move. In character for how she had been playing the rest of their games, always on the offensive, always keeping him defending. The danger to his knight on d7 was clear.

“Rook to d8.” he felt his hands clenching, an admittedly idiotic desire to strangle her rising in his throat. If this were any other meatbag in all of the different ‘existences’ that this realm could connect to, he probably would have. Despite the fact that it was as good as upturning the board.

“Rook takes d7.” She kept _looking at him_ , even while she sacrificed the rook she had just moved into position,and he _knew_ it was a bad move to recapture but she was _literally leaving him no choice._

“Recapture.” He forced the word out, watching out of the corner of his eye as she waved the hand not holding the water bottle. Beside the chessboard, lines of light began forming, connecting and spreading out in a maze-like design. Small notes of things floated above certain parallel paths, and he diverted his attention momentarily from the chess game to watch the maze take shape. _Glass walls_ was a prominent note above the entire maze. _Forced choices. Sacrifice for sake of family._

“You’re downright _devious_.” He could feel his mouth curling into a small, reluctant smile as she showed him her next plans for their agreed tale within the confines of the narration. While she was seemingly always against him in their other games, at least in this one she seemed more than willing to be helpful and compliant.

“For the sake of a good story, of course I am.” she flicked her finger from her untaken rook to the D file again, “Rook to d1. Now imagine for a moment, Dipper gets to the end of this maze, where you’re waiting. He knows there’s no way out for him. He knows that if he dies, he forgets. He knows that if he forgets, there’s no guarantee he’ll find his reminders again in any reasonable amount of time--”

“So _that’s_ how you’ve been playing it, then?”

“I asked you point blank before we started this little game that his journal be left untouched by the resets for a reason.” this time, her smile brought less the sense of daggers into his mood and more the sense of congratulations that he was finally starting to see some of her logic. “With this, you force him to lose a tempo while thinking he’s gaining it.”

He let out a sound of pleased understanding without meaning to, finally connecting the dots that she had been leading him to. “So he proposes the deal to get his memory back.”

“Exactly.”

“And in doing so, makes himself more vulnerable to owing me concessions in the later game. Temporary disadvantage, later gain.”

“Now you’re getting it.”

He turned his attention back to the chess board, now baring his teeth in something that couldn’t quite be described as a smile, but which eschewed his pleasure nonetheless. Knowing a bit more about the way she was thinking in this particular matter made him feel a bit more equipped to understand her logic in their other arenas. “Queen to e6.” It pinned down his queen, but it did the same with hers. If either of them moved them, they would force a trading of queens. Not to mention, she was at _least_ down a rook.

She chuckled, taking another sip of her water, “Eventually you may even be able to force me to draw in other ways.” She looked pointedly at their chessboard, making it clear what she meant, and he felt the momentary pleasure whisk away into confused dismay and rage again, as she spoke a move that would win the game for her. “Bishop takes d7. Check.”

He scanned his options, following each to their respective ends. If he took with his queen, he’d avoid his king getting checkmated, but his position of defense would be entirely lost. She would keep him in a march of moves to avoid being mated, until finally taking his queen with her own and winning after that.  At this point, the only option left to him was to attempt to lose gracefully.

“Knight to d7.” There was the barest note of resignation to his voice, barely hidden by the promise of retribution later.

“Queen to b8, check again.” she was smiling again, that thrice-damned smile, “I know how to manipulate my pieces, Cipher. Eventually you may learn this.”

“Knight takes b8.” At least he got to take her queen, paltry concession that it was. He owned almost all of her better pieces but for the two that would checkmate him. Despite the number of material sacrifices she had made, her King had never once come under any kind of danger from him.

“Rook to D8.” She held her hand out toward him, the traditional offer for him to save face even in defeat. “Checkmate. Trust me when I tell you this, I know what I’m doing.”

He curled his lip at her, displeasure etched into every line on his face. “If I trust you, can you guarantee that you’ll see me through to the end of our mutual game?” His hand took on the blue flames of a deal, eye glowing with the same blue light.

“If you trust me,” she smiled, clasping his hand with hers, “Then there’s no way you won’t reach the end.”

The chessboard disappeared from between them as she ‘stood up’, tucking her laptop under her arm. She curtsied toward him, before turning away and disappearing with a step, leaving him in the time between the consecutive instants that added up into seconds of outside time. It was only after she left that he realized--

The wording of their deal never guaranteed that she would make sure he _won_.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Bg5.


	10. Hickory Dickory Dock

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 19-18-24-16-12-9-2 23-18-24-16-12-9-2 23-12-24-16  
> 7-19-22 14-12-6-8-22 9-26-13 6-11 7-19-22 24-15-12-24-16  
> 7-19-22 24-15-12-24-16 4-12-6-15-23 8-7-9-18-16-22 12-13-22,  
> 26-13-23 23-12-4-13 19-22 4-12-6-15-23 24-12-14-22,  
> 19-18-24-16-12-9-2 23-18-24-16-12-9-2 23-12-24-16. [Atbash-A1Z26]

For the first time in Dipper’s memory (for what little good that _apparently_ did), Stan didn’t open the Shack that day. Mabel stuck to Dipper’s side like glue, curling up with him to watch old and dumb movies on the Gravity Falls movie channel with Waddles curled up on his other side. They marathoned Attack of the Exclamation Points!!!!! and Attack of the Exclamation Points!!!!! 2: Carat Cake, starting at four in the morning, and were in the middle of AotEP!!!!! 3: Amper-sandtrap when Wendy arrived for her shift at work at nine am. She was brought up to speed quickly and quietly by Stan, and then headed over to hang out with the twins in their movie-fest. Dipper had to fight down an irrational spike of nerves for the fact that he was still in his pajamas, which consisted of sweatpants and a slightly ratty t-shirt.

This was Wendy. She’d seen him in worse states before.

She didn’t even comment, pulling off her overshirt and flopping across both of their laps in her tank top and jeans. She squirmed until she was comfortable, settling in and immediately turning her head toward the TV, pillowing her head on her painted arms and her bundled up overshirt. Her hair cascaded out of her hat and across her back, raising with every breath and resettling with every exhale. Somehow it was almost as if nothing was wrong, at least for a while.

The movies were mediocre at best, but the sheer proximity of his twin and his best friend was more than enough to make up for it. Dipper found himself almost relaxing enough to doze off again when Stan announced that their late-brunch was ready, prompting Wendy to get up and stop being the most comforting human blanket. Waddles hopped off the couch to go snag some food as well, removing the effective space heater that had been curled up at his side, and he grumbled about all good things coming to an end.

The presence of proper french toast with whipped cream and sprinkles and fruit slices was just barely an acceptable substitute, though.

When he sat down at the table, a plate was placed in front of him and a big glass of Mabel juice, despite the fact that he’d already had his allotted “one a day” glass of the heart-attack producing sugary drink. He tore into his food with gusto, watching out of the corner of his eyes as Soos entered the kitchen and began fiddling with the coffee maker (which had been broken somehow between the time they went to sleep and the time that they woke up early that morning, for impossible-to-pinpoint reasons. Paranoia made itself the motto of the Gravity-Falls-familiar members of the Pines family, and after a three-am revelation of Dipper having managed to get tangled up with a demon somehow without their memory, none of the three of them were willing to touch it directly, fearing some kind of direct meddling from the triangle.

As it turned out, Bill had decided that coffee creamer was perfectly fine on its own, and in fact didn't need _coffee_ at all.)

Conversation was quiet and sparse, almost all of them keeping to their own thoughts. Wendy made a suggestion to go hang out at the graveyard, she could call her friends up and they could make a day of it. Mabel had reminded her that Robbie and Tambry were probably already busy on a date, and that Thompson had already made the move to Washington to attend college there.

Mabel hadn't had to say what she was really thinking -- Dipper needed quiet assurance and comfort, not outgoing 'regularity'. Dipper had asked at one point if the local high school had a running track, and if it was maybe open to go to during the summer; this had gotten confused looks from Stan and Wendy, and an increased look of empathetic concern from Mabel.

He didn't run often during the summers -- at least, not from nothing in particular. Running for the sake of running, for the feeling of his muscles burning and sweat rolling down his neck, for the way it forced him to breathe in a steady pattern and let his mind go free, was usually reserved for days when he needed to stop himself from thinking anymore. It was a coping mechanism for particularly bad days.

He could run his legs in circles for a while, and give his thoughts a break.

In the end, they all shuffled back into the living room and curled up in a pile on the couch again, deciding to at least finish their moviefest. Mabel offered to go upstairs and dig through her stuff to find the DVD set of all eight Harry Potter movies, to which Wendy had jokingly pointed out that 'that's almost a full day's worth of movie' and Mabel had nodded gravely. Dipper, curled in the warm spot in the middle of the pile, had been quiet for almost an hour by that point, caught between dozing and refusing to actually fall asleep (just in case), and had let his thoughts follow whatever tangent they wanted to.

Most of those tangents looped back around into wondering just how deep he was in over his head. It was markedly strange, knowing there was... well, shit going down, but having no indication whatsoever readily available in his own mind that anything was actually _wrong_. Anxiety tugged at the frayed edges, gnawing at the sense of wrongness in the world around him that was whittling away at his nerves.

Nothing he was able to pinpoint, but he couldn't make it _go away._

“Dude, you’re pinching yourself again.”

Wendy’s voice cut through his thoughts, bringing his attention back to the world around him. He turned his eyes down to his arm, where an ugly red welt was beginning to form between where two of his fingernails were digging into his skin. A faint series of similar marks were visible up and down his arm, and he spent a moment rubbing his hand over them to try and smooth them away.

“Sorry, I…” he trailed off as Wendy settled onto the couch beside him and wrapped an arm around his shoulders, pulling his head into the crook between her neck and her shoulder. Her hair fell in a crimson curtain, casting most of what he could see in a warm, shadowy red. “...didn’t even notice,” he mumbled into her neck, inexplicably feeling some of the tension flow out of his system.

She smelled a bit like pine trees -- aromatic needles and the rough, coarse smell of woodsmoke. It suited her, all irony about pine trees and who they represented aside.

“Yeah, I figured,” Wendy ruffled a hand through his hair, while Mabel fiddled with the rather jerry-rigged dvd player, trying to force her way through the usual struggle of shifting the TV from cable to DVDs. Dipper focused on the quiet pulse of Wendy’s heartbeat under his cheek, and the way it soothed his own nervous energy. “You know, worrying about things like this isn’t going to do much--”

Her words were cut off by the sound of someone knocking on the front door to the Shack, the entrance to the gift shop. Dipper sat up properly and craned his neck to peer through the living room door, toward the gift shop where Stan was shuffling toward the door.

“Can’t you read, we’re closed today--” Stan pulled open the door, but paused at the sight of the girl standing on the doorstep. “Hey, haven’t I seen you before?”

“I…” the girl offered a sheepish grin, “I was part of the tour group yesterday, but I didn’t buy any knick-knacks. I was waiting for my check to go through, and it went through this morning. I know the sign says closed, but--”

“But nothing.” Stan grumped, frowning down at her, “We’re closed for a reason, we can’t just go ignoring things and giving anyone special privileges.”

“No, I know,” she quickly held up her hands, “I promise I won’t take any more than fifteen minutes, I just -- June fourth is the last day I can spend here in Gravity Falls, and I wanted to buy a souvenir or two to remind myself about this place.”

Dipper, pushing himself to his feet with a huff of air, spoke up, “Oh, let her in, Grunkle Stan. The customer is always right.”

Wendy snickered, rolling her eyes, “I’ve been allowed today off, excuse me if I don’t jump for joy that we’re letting a customer in.”

“No worries,” he muttered toward her, “I’ll handle this. Register and all. You just enjoy the day off.” He padded through the door to the gift shop, while Stan let the girl in, muttering under his breath that he wasn’t about to do an entire tour again for one person. Dipper rubbed his eyes to get rid of the half-sleep clinging to them, and instead padded over to hold a hand out to the visiting customer.

She was around his height, surprisingly, an inch or so shorter than him, with bronzy hair gelled up into short spikes. A pair of rectangular glasses sat on her nose, and silvery gray eyes peered from behind them. He noted that she didn’t have a ring on her finger when she clasped his hand -- not married, still young enough to be called miss. Around her wrists were a pair of thick matching gold bracelets, which fit snugly against her skin. “Pleasure to meet you, miss.” he inclined his head toward her.

“Not as much as it is to meet you,” she smiled, “You’ve got a rather memorable face, and it’s nice to meet one of the main characters of this town’s notorious story. I came for the tour yesterday mostly out of intrigue over the Pines family, admittedly. It seems like your names are in more newspaper articles here than any other.”

“Well, we have a bit of a knack for attracting less desirable attention, I guess.” he offered a half-hearted smile, before letting go of her hand and gesturing around them. “If you have any questions about any of the merchandise, please feel free to ask.”

“Oh, I’m sure that won’t be necessary, I have a pretty good idea what I want to get done today anyway.” she stepped past him, following his gesturing, and began peering at the various knick-knacks on the shelves, “Now that I have the money, I have the opportunity, and it doesn’t make any sense to hesitate to do things if you have the opportunity, in my opinion. You never know when you might get another chance to do something.”

Dipper blinked, tilting his head at her, “What do you mean?”

“Well, like right now, I’ve only got today to buy souvenirs, since I finally got my paycheck through but am leaving early tomorrow morning, but in general? The situation may conspire to prevent you from doing something again. Or, you could convince yourself to always hesitate about something… and it could, y’know, just become a repetitive problem.” She picked out one of the twisted wooden figurines of a gnome, peering at it and turning it about in her hands, “As another example, I’ve recently gotten tangled up in a bit of a mess with one of my business partners. As a result, I’m looking for a solution to the problem as soon as possible. Doesn’t make any sense not to act on the first solution that pops up, does it?”

“Oh?” Dipper watched her put the gnome figurine down, while she continued on her way down the shelf, “What kind of mess, if you don’t mind me asking?”

“Nothing I can’t handle,” she waved a hand, “He’s just… a highly unpleasant soul to be working with, honestly. And he thinks I have far less control over the situation I’m in than I actually do have.” She offered a grin toward him, picking up a different figurine, this one the shape of one of the ents in the forest. “I think I’ll buy this one. It’s an ent, right? I’m sure my girlfriend will like it, she’s a nut about Lord of the Rings.”

He bit down on his surprise at the last comment, offering a tentative grin himself, “Then I’m sure that’ll be a great gift for her. I’ll ring that up for you, then.”

“Yeah. Oh, you know what? Ring up one of those fake eyeballs too, I know just the guy to give it to.”

“Impulsive buyer?” he snickered, slipping around behind the counter and opening the cash register to total up the prices.

“When I have the money, hell yeah. Go after what you want to get done, man. Nothing’s gonna change if you don’t change shit yourself, and being impulsive is, if not the best way, then at least the most fun way to go about it.” She scooped one of the rubber eyeballs out of their jar, rolling it around in her hand for a second and squishing it lightly between her fingers.

“That’s… some pretty good advice, actually.” he accepted her debit card and ran it through the register, handing it back to her, “Thanks.”

“No problem. Thanks for being such an interesting character to talk to.” She smiled back toward him, accepting her card back and picking up the figurine. She lightly pressed the plastocene eye into the curve of the ent’s hand, tucking it into her bag, “And thanks for humoring me.”

She headed for the door, ducking out without another word. But she didn’t really need to say another word.

Dipper stared after her, frowning. “Nothing’s going to change if you don’t change shit yourself…” he muttered, his mind whirling. The entire thing was doubtlessly a coincidence, but -- still, it applied more neatly to the situation he found himself in than could be just brushed off.

“She gone?” Stan stuck his head into the room, “How much did she buy? You okay, even after that?”

“I’m-- I’m fine, Grunkle Stan. I think I’m better than I was, actually.” He turned to look at the old man behind him, “I’ve actually decided on a path of action, I think.”

“Really?” Stan tilted his head, and Mabel and Wendy stuck their head through the door to the living room. From the kitchen, Soos poked his own head into the room to look at him.

“Yeah.” he nodded, his eyes hardening, “I don’t want to hide and wait to be hunted. There’s no guarantee I’ll find that journal page again, and if I die… no.” he shook his head, curling his lip in distaste, “I can’t sugar coat this. _When_ I die.” He noted the flinch from all four of them. “I’m sorry, but if things are as bad as they seemed from what I wrote in my journal, I… I don’t think I’m going to avoid it. When I die, I’m going to forget all of this again.”

Mabel took three big steps and grabbed hold of his hands, “So what are you planning to do?” she asked, eyes wide with unease.

“I’m going to confront the issue.” He pursed his lips, a resolute look forming on his face, “The only way anything is going to change is if we tackle the problem directly."

 

* * *

 

_"Satisfied?" She stepped lightly into the realm between, pulling out the rubber eyeball from her bag and tossing it toward him with a smirk. He caught it without looking, rolling his actual eye when he saw what it was. He ignored her question in favor of asking one of his own:_

_"They're on their way?"_

_She snorted, shaking her head toward him. "Yep. Before they get to the maze, however, might I suggest_ one _small alteration...?” She held up one finger, smiling indulgently, “For stylistic reasons, of course. I'm certain you'll approve."_

 _"Oh, you're_ certain _, hmm?” He sneered right back at her, finally turning his head to stare her down derisively, “I seem to recall the last change for 'stylistic reasons' ended up delaying us for_ weeks _of your personal timeline--"_

_A soft golden glow broke out between them, as she raised a hand and the new plan for the maze was shown. A smug smirk graced her face as he trailed off into silence, staring at the altered proposal as though it were a true work of art._

_"...That is..._ admittedly _... quite appealing." He grit his teeth, reluctance mixed with awe in his tone, flicking his eye up toward her, “How long would it take you to implement that?”_

_"I knew you'd see things my way." She chuckled, waving a hand and brushing away the golden glowing plans, “You’ve always been quite the narcissist. Give me four days of my personal time.”_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "Siiub lzm wtelzgal uwfvrpku wx ymgfrtia, bzwv lar pptiealk, muee vpw vmkbtn fp bzw jsvx ow vpw vwdenr sk-- ... wz, qwm _tfsyqtw._ "
> 
> [Bill is such a NARCISSIST.]


	11. Tick

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> T vqdx ntyf bjo pzkdxz: Hyk bjo limo hn aynz ukgqvi tvf ofwvshvcv pmnv umkxz, qv sl pkqata cnoiolbgn rww vxixo rwwb amcbm iv dam fyhz. Cxrwpo ywwxw qp zhauolakyg wh daiv setkmbb qbzip gbbjsg bjo uwwxwitsxa qp mpkc vpczmmt gbtn rtdg sm xtyfxvvr zgwhdgn pqvrhcv rxakdtbkyg wt wxzei. Uqnv pqnv izqltjni xiv sm. Q fyg'b jkom vrx tgfxzcqx wt dam rkmqgxvm vy lbqz aqo pkwo nhqpq lw.
> 
> Ayn pcfx jgog ecbgmf.

Shadows danced across their skin, as the group of five walked under the canopy of trees in the mid-day sun. Mabel stuck close to Dipper at the head of the group, keeping an eye out around them while Dipper continued walking almost straight ahead, something in his gut pulling him forward as though he were attached to the hook on the other end of a fishing line. In the back of his mind, he could swear that he could hear indulgent chuckling growing louder the further into the woods they went.

Stan and Soos were following close behind them, Stan with his brass knuckles on his fingers with a grim expression on his face and Soos holding a baseball bat over one shoulder, looking around almost as much as Mabel was. Wendy was pulling up the rear, holding a folded piece of paper with the words for an exorcism on it and with her ‘old trusty’ axe hooked onto her belt. None of them were speaking. No one had to speak.

They were nearing a ridge that dropped down into a valley about five miles outside of town, having left the car behind a while back. Dipper wasn’t sure how he knew where they were going, but he knew that they were getting close. The echoing laughter in the back of his mind was growing almost manic, becoming nearer and nearer to hysterics with every step he took.

They reached the ridge, and looked down. There, at the bottom, near the edge of the valley, was the cackling, human form of what had to be Bill Cipher.

He swept a hand up and out toward them, still laughing, a fireball crashing into the ridge underneath their feet; the rock underneath them crumbled, sending all five of them rolling down the incline, screeching the entire way down. Dipper felt the rocks digging into his arms, tearing his shirt and jabbing him in the side when he finally rolled to a stop at the base of the incline. His hat had fallen off, and had fluttered a few feet away, coming to rest at Bill’s feet. Mabel had landed half next to him, half on top of him, and she had a cut on her cheek that was bleeding freely. Wendy was already pushing up on her hands and knees, her palms scraped and her lip split. Her axe had disconnected from her belt somewhere on the way down the ridge and was skittering to a stop next to her.

Soos’ shirt was torn, right through the center of the question mark design, and he had a pretty nasty looking gash over one of his collar bones. Stan was sitting up, slowly, his bones creaking and a grimace on his face. He turned his head and spat toward the dirt, blood mixed in with his spit.

Dipper forced his arms to work, rolling Mabel off from on top of him and straining to push to look up. He wrapped an arm around his waist, grimacing, and managed to look up at just the right moment to see Bill cease laughing and bend down to scoop up his hat with a faint sneer.

“Welcome!” the demon swept the hat to one side, as though he were bowing, holding Dipper’s hat out in place of the pipe hat that was still perched almost daintily over his own crown. “I hope you’re all excited to be here, because I _sure as all hell am!_ ” He stood straight again in the same movement that had all five of them pushing to their feet, Stan curling his hands into fists, Wendy reaching for her axe and pushing to start a leap forward, Soos curling his hand around the baseball bat again--

A snap of the demon’s gloved fingers sent a wall of flame billowing up between himself and the Pines entourage, stopping them in their tracks before they could attack him. Tendrils of that same flame leapt through the air, seeking something to latch onto, forcing the five humans to step away from them to keep from being burned.

With an almost lazy wave of his hand, and a demented sort of smile on Bill’s face, he directed the growing flame in short surges forward, keeping them hopping backwards and around, trying to avoid the blue flames. Before they could stop what was happening, the fire had managed to curl around each of them, locking them into a spot away from everyone else. It burst upward, walls of flame that blocked their sight of the others around each of them.

Despite the dry heat surging around them, Dipper felt his innards turn to ice, certain that they were all going to die. But the walls didn’t close in around him, shifting at a pace just slow enough that he could inch along with them and avoid the fire. Sweat was dripping down the back of his neck by the time the fire behind him died away, revealing a thin, darkened tunnel of something that looked like polished amber.

He stumbled back from the remaining flames, which all but shoved him into the shadowy floor of the -- tunnel? hallway? -- entrance. For a moment, they covered the opening he had fallen through, blocking the outside world from sight.

He swallowed heavily when the fire disappeared, leaving nothing but more, unbroken stone and a dead end in front of his face.

“ _Dipper?_ ” Mabel’s voice echoed through the tunnels, high pitched and mildly panicking, “ _Dipper are you okay? Where are you?_ ”

He swallowed again, forcing spit to wet his throat, before he managed to call out again, “I’m okay! I’m in some kind of hallway. Where are you?”

“ _It ain’t a hallway, it’s a maze!_ ” Stan’s voice echoed next, followed shortly by a startled yelp that sounded like Wendy.

“ _A maze with traps!_ ” she reported. “ _Stay on your toes!_ ”

“ _Oh man…_ ” Soos’ voice came at last, sounding apprehensive, “ _I’ve never been that good at mazes, dudes._ ”

“Keep one hand on the left wall at all times if you can!” Dipper called out, “We’ll find each other!”

He took his own advice, pushing to his feet and reaching his left hand out until his fingers brushed against the cold stone. He held still for a second, barely putting any weight against his hand in paranoia of the walls somehow swallowing him whole, before finally putting more pressure than just his fingertips against the wall.

Swallowing, he started down the tunnel, keeping his eyes open and his ears perked for any signs of traps. The wall was surprisingly smooth under his hand, but still held more chill than warmth, and he felt certain that chill would spread from the wall to the air around him if he went deep enough into the maze.

Strangely, even though Wendy had announced that there were traps, and he had since heard the various voices of his chosen family letting out surprised yelps as those traps were sprung… he didn’t run into anything. It was almost more unnerving than if he was being delayed by a trap every few feet.

The sound of Bill’s laughter started again, a soft snicker that seemed to stay just behind him. He tossed a glance over his shoulder periodically, each time growing more and more nervous. The further he walked, the longer the hallways seemed, until eventually when he looked behind him he could only see darkness where its end ought to be. Every time the snicker came, sounding just a few inches behind him, he would snap his head over his shoulder to peer back into the blackness.

Slowly, even the sounds of his family faded, and even though he knew they were still there and still tripping traps and moving forward, the only sound he could hear was that _damned snickering._

He stumbled into a room while his head was turned behind him at one point, the wall pulling away from his hand without warning. The floor underneath him shifted from the dark golden brown stone at the entrance to a fine gray dirt, almost ashen in quality. He pulled his shirt up to cover his mouth and nose, just to be safe, and peered into the shadows of the room he had entered.

A door materialized and slammed shut behind him, trapping him in darkness. A torch flared to life on a wall almost opposite him, giving him a better indication of the shape of the room. It seemed to be a triangle. Big surprise.

There was a window carved into the wall of the room, underneath the torch, and through the glass he could see a similar, if reflected room with similar reflected light. With nothing else in the room, and no other visible way out, he walked over to it, butterflies fluttering in his stomach.

He came near enough to peer through it, just in time to see Soos stumble into the room beyond, looking a bit worse for wear but looking pleasantly surprised that he had found something other than an endless hallway. He pressed his hand to the glass, shivering (for it was as frigid as ice), eyes wide and hopeful that they could find some way to end the isolation. Maybe Soos still had his bat. They could break the glass. He’d crawl through it if he had to.

His eyes were so focused on the sight before him, of Soos peering around the room and realizing he was stuck, that he all but jumped with a shriek of terror when a too-warm breath was wafted against the back of his neck. His shirt collar fell back around his shoulders.

He turned and pressed his back against the wall, his heart leaping out of his chest at the sight of the feral grin with too-sharp teeth, the single visible eye almost literally glowing with delight.

Bill’s face was inches from his own. That too-warm breath passed over Dipper’s cheek, smelling faintly of… a strange mixture of spiced latte and a smell he could only describe as _yellow_. It was faintly perturbing that it wasn’t an unpleasant smell.

(Dipper had honestly kind of expected Bill to reek of blood and suffering.)

“So~ Question Mark is first to find one of my ‘fun’ rooms, huh?” The demon twirled his cane through the air with one hand, pulling back to let Dipper breathe normally again and beginning to pace just out of reach of the young man. “This should be entertaining. Now, to explain.” The cane came to a stop, caught in his free hand, and he turned a _definitely manic_ grin on Dipper. “Your path is a bit different from all of theirs, as I’m sure you’ve already noticed. Any time one of them finds one of my fun rooms, a mirroring one will appear before you.” He waved a hand, gesturing to the room around them, “I’ll decide their fate. You’ll decide who suffers it.”

Dipper forced his throat to unclench, forced himself to swallow, “Wh-Who suffers it?” he was fairly sure his voice had cracked.

Bill snapped his fingers, and at once the torches flickered out for half a second, returning to full strength on a changed room. Both rooms now had three very large boilers at their points.

“I’m thinking steam.” Bill sneered, “Fill the room with scalding hot steam for three minutes, seventeen seconds. Now, you get to choose which of you has to suffer through that, Pine Tree. Him, or you.”

Dipper was sure that his stomach had fallen out and gone to rest somewhere in the center of the earth. He… he had an option to save the people he cared about from pain, but he’d have to go through it himself?

That…

That wasn’t even a choice.

“Me.” He was almost surprised by how steady the word came out. Without any fanfare, Bill snapped his fingers and disappeared. The boilers rumbled to life in his room, the sound loud and demanding, but his eyes were on Soos, who was still peering around the room he was in. True to his job, the handyman was inspecting the three boilers on his side, his brow furrowed in something akin to confusion for once.

Dipper pressed his hand against the window again, tapping at it with a knuckle until Soos looked around. There was a second of confusion, before his face cleared in shock and surprise and he hurried over to stand opposite Dipper. The glass was already starting to fog up on his side, but he forced himself to pay no mind to the growing heat.

_Now… I write backwards to have it seen through glass, right?_

He dragged his finger through the condensation, carefully shaping out the letters _took your trap, you’re safe to go._ Then, just to be sure he was clear, he drew a crude drawing of one of the boilers, already emitting steam. The drawing, and the letters, were already starting to fade away again by the time he finished it, and he swiped his hand through it to clear his vision of Soos again. The water droplets were warm and growing warmer, trailing up his arm from his hand.

Soos, on the other side of the glass, pressed his own hand up against Dipper’s, his face pulled taut with unhappy determination. It was clear he had no intention of leaving. Even as the fog blocked out his face again, Dipper hesitated to move his hand. Sweat was dripping down his forehead now, stinging his eyes, but… just opposite his hand, just beyond the glass, there was someone there. Someone who cared about him.

As soon as the steam obscured everything around him, even his hand, barely extended against the glass, he heard Bill’s voice seemingly purr from behind him, “The clock starts now. Three minutes, seventeen seconds.”

His clothes were already soaked through, and the air just seemed to continue getting warmer. He did his best to count to -- three minutes, seventeen seconds, a hundred and ninety seven seconds -- a hundred and ninety seven, steadily. He was at forty three when he started to feel his skin blistering and cracking. He reached fifty seven before his thoughts wavered for half a second.

Wasn’t the atomic weight of gold one hundred ninety six point ninety seven or something? It rounded up to 197, he knew that much…

He managed to get to ninety six before he started to feel woozy, and had to lean more heavily against the glass window. His hair was soaked through with sweat and steam, falling in limp curls against his skin.

Come to think of it… the journal had made note of a time, 3:17 AM... 

He was at one hundred and… twenty two? twenty six? ...when his legs gave out from under him and he slipped down to sit on the floor, struggling to keep his eyes from closing. He had the feeling that if he passed out, he wouldn’t be waking up with his memories anymore.

He pulled his legs up to his chest, doing his best to focus on his breathing and the numbers in his head, but they were scrambled now. He found himself skipping backwards, going back into the nineties, then back up to the hundred and tens. It was getting harder to focus.

What felt like seconds before he was sure he was going to pass out, the temperature made a noticeable drop back down again, not back to normal temperature but slowly climbing its way back down. He brought a hand up to smack roughly at his cheek, rubbing some feeling back into his skin and forcing himself to wake up again. He peered at his skin, which was red and raw and twinged with pain with every movement, but still somehow holding strong. There were several blisters running up and down his uncovered arms, but the quickly cooling air did more than enough to soothe them.

Well, on the plus side, his skin was sure to be clear as a cloudless day soon. 

He stayed still in the room for a few moments to make sure he wasn't about to pass out, breathing slow and steady, before slowly pushing to his feet. A quick glance through the window showed Soos, waiting for indication from him that he was okay. He was sure he had to be a mess, his hair plastered down on his forehead and his skin red and blistering in most of the uncovered places. Nonetheless, he brought up a double thumbs up toward Soos, flashing a shaky grin.

Soos brought his own double thumbs up to mirror Dipper’s, pulling the brim of his hat down with a nod before turning to leave the room again. Dipper followed suit, moving a bit more slowly than he had before, letting himself get acclimated to the tenderness of his skin. As soon as the wall was in reach, he brought his hand up to trail against the cool stone again. It was almost soothing.

He paused, leaning more of himself against the wall, soaking in as much of the coolness as he could. His heartbeat was finally starting to slow back down to something approaching ‘normal’ when he realized he had closed his eyes and was whimpering. He pushed his eyelids open again, and pushed himself off of the wall.

He continued walking. What else could he do? He had to keep moving forward.

Ten minutes passed, then ten more. He kept his eyes open for any indication of the maze shifting, scanning for any breaks in the smooth stone walls, any cracks, any signs of nature. He knew this maze had to have been constructed, but it all almost seemed like it had been created from one piece, in one instant. He tried to locate any markings at all that could help him identify a crossroads, to make sure he never doubled back on himself.

The left-hand-on-the-wall trick was good for that, assuming that this maze wasn’t supernatural in nature, which was, he realized, a rather silly notion to assume. Bill had already said rooms would appear before him whenever someone else was about to find one.

His footsteps became more regular as the tenderness of his skin began to dissipate, some of the worst blistered bits starting the arduous process of scabbing over.

At last, he turned a corner and the hallway opened up a bit more, less a room and more of a widened version of the narrow hall he was travelling down before, but still noticeably different. One side of it entirely was walled off with glass, allowing sight into the similar room on the other side. He watched the entrance of that other room and was relieved when he saw Stan walk into it, shoulders thrown back and eyes narrowed in annoyance.

No matter how many scrapes and tears in his clothing he had, as long as his Grunkle Stan was wearing his patented “I’m too old for this bullshit” scowl, Dipper knew he was more or less okay.

He stepped up to the glass wall, pressing his hands to it and smiling through it until Stan rolled his eyes and mirrored him. The old man pointed at him and held a thumbs up, tilting his head to the side in question. _You okay?_

Dipper nodded, pointing through the glass and also tipping his head. _I’m fine. You?_

Stan cracked his knuckles with a scowl. Dipper didn’t need to translate that.

He turned before he had to be alerted, to see Bill lounging against a wall, twirling his cane again. Dipper took a deep breath, steadying himself. “What challenge now?” He asked, forcing his voice to come steady.

“Lasers.” Bill’s eye gleamed, and he snapped his fingers to show the walls that weren’t glass shifting to open small angled holes. “Who will suffer it~?”

“Me.” The interaction almost felt like a ritual, one he felt like he was doomed to accept. Still, it seemed like the choice of his death was in his own hands, at this point. So long as he did well, he wouldn’t die, and he would still have a chance to get what he wanted. “Bill--”

Bill held up a hand, sneering, “All in due time, Pine Tree.” For the barest flicker of a second, his expression shifted, into one that seemed almost _fond_ , as though Dipper were a particularly entertaining pet hamster. “If you reach the end, then we’ll talk _business,_ rather than _pleasure_.” He snapped his fingers again, and a faint sheen rippled through the glass, turning it bluish. The lasers flickered to life on his side of the hallway, reaching the glass and stopping without going through. Without another word, he disappeared again.

Stan slammed his hand on his side of the glass, eyes widening in concern. Dipper stayed still for a few seconds, staring at the laser grid on his side of the hall. The lasers didn’t move, which he supposed was generous on Bill’s part.

He was sure he could get through this. He just had to take it slow.

He took a deep breath, looking back to Stan, smiling a little bit sheepishly and offering a hesitant thumbs up, before starting forward into the grid of lasers.

Stan mirrored him on his side, staying parallel to Dipper’s progress, as he carefully wove his way through the first few sets of lasers. From the beginning, it had looked like they were evenly distributed throughout the hallway, but it soon became clear that they grew more densely populated the further along he went. He felt heat radiating far too close to his already tender skin for comfort on more than one occasion, and had to hold his breath through a few of the lasers.

When he finally reached a spot in the middle of the hallway that seemed free of them, he let out a breath of relief, but Stan waved a hand to get his attention and frantically shook his head before he could move forward.

Dipper tilted his own head, watching as Stan reached down and scooped up some of the fine ashy dust that covered the floor, holding the pile in front of his face and blowing to disperse it in front of him. Dipper, confused, squatted directly down as Stan had done and did the same, blowing it forward into the empty air.

All at once, the section he had believed empty of lasers was a dangerous criss-cross of them, one that would have eviscerated him if he had moved forward even a step. He sucked in a breath of surprise, heart hammering in surprise as he realized just how close he had come to walking blindly forward, before he forced himself to calm down again. He hadn’t done that. That was all that mattered.

He turned his head toward the glass, bringing his hand up to his mouth and chin and pulling it away again. He didn’t know a lot of sign language, but he knew the sign for “thank you” well enough.

Stan nodded, encouraging him on.

Carefully, he continued on, ducking down to scoop up more of the ashy dust and disperse it every few feet. His hair brushed against one of the lasers near the end, flaring up with a tiny flame that sputtered out nearly as quickly due to his hair still being faintly damp with sweat and steam from before. Nonetheless, a good inch of his bangs had burned clean off.

He reached the back wall of the hallway and all but collapsed against it, letting out a breath of relief as all of the tension finally slipped out of his muscles. Stan held up his hands until his fingers formed a triangle shape, then slammed one fist into the opposite palm. Dipper gave a grim nod in return.

Before Stan could leave, Dipper held up a hand to stop him, biting his lip as he tried to figure out how to gesture out what he wanted. Eventually, he tugged on his hair, before gesturing for it to be longer, as though a girl version of himself -- to indicate his twin -- and tapped next to his eye before tilting his head. _Mabel -- have you seen her?_

Stan tapped next to his eye and shook his head, before tapping his ear and nodding. He hadn’t seen her, but he could still hear her.

Dipper held up his hand in an okay symbol and widened his eyes hopefully. Stan nodded right back, a fiercely proud grin working its way onto his face. Mabel, it seemed, was faring better than most of them, based on what he could hear from her. Relief surged through Dipper’s system. He didn’t know what he would do with himself if Mabel got irrevocably hurt.

He formed a W, E, N, with his fingers before Stan nodded and held up a thumbs up. Wendy was also okay. 

Finally, he gestured a question mark in the air. _Soos?_

Stan shrugged and mouthed a single word. ‘Out.’

Dipper finally pushed to his feet and leaned against the glass, tilting his head and carefully mouthing, ‘Soos got out?’

Stan held up one hand as a two, and the other as a zero, mouthing back, ‘20 minutes ago.’

Understanding flared on Dipper’s face for a moment, before he gave a truly relieved smile and mouthed back, ‘You’ll probably get out soon too, then.’

Stan tilted his head, frowning, clearly wondering what he meant, but Dipper didn’t clarify. He pushed off of the glass, signed ‘I love you’ and ‘stay safe’, before turning. He didn’t look back, even when Stan banged on the glass to try and get his attention again.

_How touching._ Bill’s voice seemed to echo in the back of his mind, a sneer. _You know, it’s honestly adorable how ready you are to sacrifice yourself for the people you care about. That’s going to be your downfall pretty soon._

Dipper ignored the voice. Mabel had long since told him he had a ‘saving people problem’, and he had already, multiple times, decided that it was still worth it so long as it was still working. With a few more steps, he turned a corner and the hallway of lasers disappeared behind him, Grunkle Stan with it.

He had no doubt that Stan would be finding himself outside of this hellish maze before long.

All that left, then, were Wendy and Mabel. Assuming he could survive two more challenges, that would mean they were safe as well, and then perhaps he could bargain for his own safety. Or at least, for his memories back whenever he died.

On second thought, the second option was more likely. He doubted Bill would let him out of this maze alive.

He had only been walking for about five minutes when the hallways finally shifted again, this time seeming to spiral outward from the inner point. The wall on his left shifted to that same glass, and he looked to see Wendy step into the opposite spiral. He didn’t bother to wonder how they could both be spiraling out from the center of a circle, doubling back on hallways that were no longer there. All he could do was let out a breath of relief at the sight of Wendy, scraped and banged up, but still whole. 

She brightened at the sight of him, even though he was still doubtlessly red as a cooked lobster and had his hair singed and cut a bit closer than before; he returned her infectious, delighted grin with one of his own. She tried talking, but he shook his head. Bill wasn't letting him hear any of the others, seemingly, so he couldn't hear her.

After a few seconds of contemplating this, she dug into her pocket and pulled out her cell phone, holding it up toward him. He grimaced -- idiot that he was, he had left his at the Shack.

Nonetheless, she tapped out a text message, turning her phone around so he could read it.

_I'm no good at charades. Glad to see you in one piece._

He nodded, grinning again and pointing at her, before holding up two fingers. _You too._

She visibly snickered, tapping out a fast message without hesitation. _Almost wasn't at a couple points! One hallway was literally, I swear, MADE of spiders and spider web. I almost became a giant queen black widow's lunch._

He offered a sheepish smile. He was quietly glad that she had already gone through something like that, so it was unlikely that Bill would do anything similar. Spiders and scorpions still managed to freak him out. 

She gestured around, tilting her head at the strange configuration of the hallway they found themselves in. He shrugged, feeling his stomach dropping out in antsy anticipation. He turned back the way he had come, and sure enough, there just before the glass would make him visible to Wendy, Bill was standing and waiting.

"Done with your _oh so touching_ romantic reunion, yet? I want to see one of you scrambling to dodge some _moving_ obstacles this time."

"It'll be me," he spoke quickly, not letting himself hesitate to even think about how hard that was going to be. He didn't even know what kind of _moving obstacles_ Bill was talking about, but he didn't care. Wendy was worth it.

Bill smirked, snapping his fingers and promptly turning on his heels, walking back into the darkness of the hallway behind Dipper and disappearing from sight once again, but not before tossing a quip over his shoulder, “I wouldn’t stop moving, if I were you.” 

The spiraling hallway rumbled faintly, and he felt his stomach drop out of his torso and settle somewhere near, oh… _China._

Without a further word he turned on his heel and began to run.

Wendy, at least, seemed to catch on quickly, as he hadn’t gone a single rotation around the spiral before she was sprinting next to him, keeping pace on her side of the hallway. He ignored the sting of his blistered and scabbing over skin pulling taut with the movement, the stiffness of his muscles. He didn’t let himself look backwards.

With his luck, Bill would have an Indiana Jones sort of boulder following him through the hallway.

Instincts and muscle control that he had gained over the years in track and field sprang to life as he needed them, his muscles responding to thoughts he wasn’t even aware he was having. The sound of steel cutting the air registered and was reacted to almost before he could realize he had heard it. He dropped into a controlled slide under the first swinging axe blade, hissing in pain as his legs caught on the ground and scraped themselves, but pushed to his feet within the same movement once he was clear of it. 

He turned mid step to dodge around a second blade that shot up from the floor, wrapping a hand around his arm where it tore through his skin. His lungs were burning and he was sure that sweat was dripping into his eyes, but he kept running. The angle of turn in the spiral grew less and less as they spiralled further out, and he had to do some quick mental recalculations to keep running when the burning in his eyes forced him to close them. 

Without the aid of his sight, he had to let his instinct fully take over to help him dodge all of the other axe blades that swung at him. There were several instances where he felt the shifting air of a just-dodged decapitation. His entire body was praying that the spiral would end soon--

There was a thunderous noise of rock slamming to a stop behind him, and he finally allowed himself to slow, then stop. Wiping the burning sweat from his eyes, he looked back to see the boulder that had been chasing him. It was massive, and looked like it was made of solid gold.

_Figures._

He looked himself over, catching his breath. His calves were burning and the skin on the back of them was horribly scraped raw. There were bruises forming on his hips and his arms from when he had turned and banged into the walls a couple of times. His upper arm had a gash in it that was bleeding pretty badly.

He grabbed the hem of his shirt and carefully wrenched his hands in opposite directions, ripping at the hem until he had pulled the entire way around. It wasn’t the best solution, but he had no misconceptions that he would be leaving this maze alive. He wrapped the makeshift bandage around his arm, covering the gash and pulling it tight with his teeth.

On the other side of the glass, Wendy was tapping away furiously on her phone. She turned it around to show him when she finished, grinning infectiously.

_That was AMAZING, Dipper! I can’t believe you outran that big boulder, and dodged all those swinging blades!_

He wiped his eyes again, finally getting his breath under some semblance of control, holding up a thumbs up and giving a gleeful grin of his own toward her. Three challenges down, three loved ones safe. Assuming that they really did find their way out of the maze safely when he survived his challenges. Which, he decided, he was going to. He couldn’t afford to think negatively in this situation, he needed to make sure he followed through to the end.

He stumbled a bit toward the wall when he first tried to take a step, his calves burning, and winced as his already bruised shoulder hit the wall separating him from Wendy. His feet didn’t seem to want to work with him after such an intense sprint. He let himself slide to the floor, rubbing feeling back into his calves, and looked up when he heard Wendy tap on the glass. She was holding her phone toward him.

_Hey, I think I feel a breeze on my side. I’m gonna keep going, you gonna be okay?_

He felt an odd sense of quiet fall upon his system. Was he going to be okay? Deep in his soul, he knew he wasn’t going to get out of this maze alive, and he was almost certain she knew on some level as well. Saying he was going to be okay was lying to her face. 

Still, smiling a bit sheepishly toward her, he waved a hand for her to _go, go_. For about half a second, he considered offering her a thumbs up to go with it but he decided against it. Better if she was safe and not worrying about him. Better if she didn’t even have time to notice that the timeline was going to reset.

He hesitated for half a second more, before tossing up his left hand, thumb, pointer, and pinky finger extended--

She raised her hand in the mirror gesture, uncurling her middle finger to curl it around her pointer finger. It wasn’t proper sign language, more like signing slang, but the message was still clear. _I love you too._

She dropped her hand, giving a bitter grin that let him know she knew exactly what kind of goodbye this was, before turning and starting to walk away. He watched her go, pressing his hand against the glass and fighting down bile. 

_At least she’s safe._

_I hope she’s safe._

He swallowed heavily, finally letting his hand fall from the glass as Wendy disappeared from sight again.

_I’ll do whatever it takes to let her be safe._

_Whatever… it takes..._

He was just turning, away from the glass and essentially away from Wendy's disappeared form, aiming to keep walking, when something stopped him. He wasn’t sure what it was, but at the back of his mind, something was screaming at him not to move, not to progress.

_Sit down._   
_Don’t move._   
_Don’t make a deal._   
_Don’t remember._   
_**Please.** _   
_It isn’t **worth it.**_

[That wasn’t Bill’s voice in the back of his head. That was _his_ voice. Cracked and broken and terrified.]

He pressed his hand more firmly against the wall, biting down an almost instinctive shudder of pure terror and realizing belatedly that his shoulders had curled up toward his ears in his most standard defensive pose. He sucked in a shivery breath, the air around him suddenly feeling cold and unwelcoming. All at once, the faint light of the maze around him seemed to have disappeared. Where before everything had seemed to have a faint golden glow to it, emanating from the amber itself, now everything felt shadowy and dark.

“Having second thoughts about what you want?” Bill’s nigh damnable voice seemed to _purr_ from the shadows, and Dipper had to clench his free hand to his chest, his heart seemingly seconds away from jackhammering right out from between his ribs. There seemed like there was a faint buzzing behind all of his thoughts and it was growing hard to focus. He had to remind himself to breathe.

_Is this… am I… panicking…? Is this a panic attack…? That I'm-- that I'm_ aware _I'm having...?_

He fought down the urge to squeeze his eyes shut, barely keeping track of the fact that he doubted Bill would let him open them again if he did. The wall slid against his back, as he slowly, slowly fell to rest on his knees, then to sit down. He felt dizzy... 

Out of the shadows, he watched with a sense of terrified helplessness as Bill stepped into sight. The demon’s eye was definitely glowing, now, the only light illuminating the area around his face being his intense stare. Dipper felt dread mix together with resignation, and he ducked his head down to break eye contact, struggling to return his focus to breathing. If he was going to die, then he couldn’t stop it… and he would rather not die by hyperventilation. That would just be _stupid_ \--

Silk-covered hands pressed surprisingly gently against his temples, heatless blue fire brushing across his skin from them and toying with his hair, and he felt more than he let himself see Bill kneel down to press his mouth against the top of Dipper’s head. The buzzing siren of panic quelled almost instantly, dying away as though it had never been, and he felt all of the tension seep out of his body seemingly all at once. Air flooded into his lungs, unhindered. His heart beat in a steady th-thump, th-thump. Confusion sparked in the panic’s former place as he felt Bill pull Dipper’s usual pine tree hat down onto his head.

“I… I don’t understand.” Was that Dipper’s voice? It was so small…

“The game isn’t over yet,” Bill smirked, a hand pressing under Dipper’s chin and gently tipping his head up to meet Bill’s gaze. Bill was all but crooning the words, “There’s still a longer game to play. I am toying with you, but I _do_ actually take decent care of my toys. Can’t have you breaking, now, can I?” 

Dipper almost automatically flinched, attempting to pull away, but Bill merely pushed to his feet with a smug grin. “Now, my dear Pine Tree, you have one last portion of this maze to finish.” he snapped his fingers, and the silence around them shifted, echoing with the sounds of traps going off elsewhere in the maze. “It’s a doozy.”

For a few seconds, Dipper could only stare upward, certain that there had to be a catch, a stipulation, _something beyond that._ Bill arched one delicately shaped eyebrow, before gesturing with one hand that Dipper should _stand up._

Trembling slightly, his muscles still feeling oddly cottony from the departed panic, Dipper found himself pushing to his feet. Bill stepped forward again, leaning down with an intense stare, “Unless you don’t _want_ to finish this maze, of course.” The demon’s mouth curled into a smug sneer again, and Dipper found himself leaning back against the amber. “Because _that_ can most _certainly_ be arranged.”

“I-- no,” Dipper was sure his voice was supposed to be stronger than that, more insistent, _angry_ even, but instead it was still hesitant with that odd note of confusion. It was strangely difficult to work up the proper will to even articulate dissent. “I still… I still want to finish this maze, it’s just…”

He broke eye contact again, unable to think straight while under that intense stare.

“...you never do anything for free.” he finally managed to murmur, staring at his feet. “I’m waiting for the other shoe to drop. For. For you fixing my head.”

“The other shoe, hm~?” that was definitely a purr. Bill grabbed hold of his chin again, less gently than before, and pushed his head up once again, “Well, to start with, you can stop avoiding looking at me. I’m _not_ doing it for free, as a matter of fact. I’m doing it so it pays off more in the future. You are an investment, Pine Tree.”

The stare that seemed like it was wrapping chains around his soul bore into Dipper’s eyes, unhindered. He couldn’t bring himself to fight against it, too aware of how delicate this situation could be.

“You are an investment.” Bill breathed again. “ _My_ investment. You,” the last word brushed across Dipper’s skin, and the hand at his chin wrapped around his neck. Dipper let out a squeak, but it didn’t tighten, or dig in, or tear his skin open. It just… held him there. Enough pressure that he couldn’t ignore it, but still strangely gentle, as though Bill were holding himself back for some reason. “You are _mine_ to do with as I please. That’s what you _agreed to._ ”

_[Wwa'b vwhvm gbck xvmvmf jxnbzx gbc vicbnzr bamz, Kbxumk.]_

Bill pulled his hand away as though it had been burned, his lip curling in distaste as he stepped back, and Dipper felt the odd heat of the moment siphon away into the cold amber of the walls again. He almost hadn’t realized how warm the air had been, with Bill in such close proximity, but before another word could be said, Bill had turned on his heel and was walking back into the shadows.

“I wouldn’t stay still too long, if I were you,” the demon tossed over his shoulder, his voice back to its normal obnoxious sneering tone. “If Shooting Star finds her fun room while you’re still idling away here, I won’t give the option for you to take her fun.”

And then he was gone. Dipper stayed for half a moment longer, straining his ears against the sudden revival of noises to try and see if Bill was just… waiting for him to start moving again. The clamor of traps going off elsewhere in the maze, seemingly endless traps, forced him to finally stop trying. If he was right, and the others got out after he ‘took their fun’, as Bill had called it, then only Mabel could be left to be tripping those traps.

“Mabel?!” he yelled, his voice cracking at first before he managed to clear his throat to yell louder again. “Mabel, are you still okay?!”

“ _Dipper?!_ ” Mabel’s voice echoed back, and he felt a surge of relief course through his system, “ _I’m fine-- Where are you? I’ll find you!_ ”

“I’m still moving!” he called back, taking his own words to heart and starting to move again, still limping faintly on one of his feet. He was pretty sure that he was developing an ulcer, with the sheer amount of stress this maze was putting on his system. And he was almost more certain that if the maze didn’t outright kill him, he’d inevitably die of a heart attack with the way this day was going. 

In fact, he was almost certain he was going to die of a heart attack before he was twenty, even if he got out of this somehow, at this rate.

It took several uneven steps for him to get anywhere near a 'hobble' and not a 'limp'. He rather hoped he wouldn't have to move too quickly in the next (last? His fingers were crossed) trial. 

Of course, he mused a bit morbidly to himself, he supposed there were worse ways to go out than running. He actually _enjoyed_ running, so at least he would die doing something he loved, right?

He took another step forward.

Despite these thoughts, he still rather hoped he wouldn't have to run again. His legs hurt like hell. 

He took another step forward.

His injured arm was also going curiously numb. He wasn't sure how deep the axe blade had cut into it, but his makeshift compressive bandage was already stained through with red. He knew his skin was still blistered and scarlet tinted with second degree burns, though most of the pain from them was dull and distant. He was more concerned with the splotches of darkened, nearly charred skin, more customary to third degree burns. They had a faintly blue-green tint to them that he was _certain_ couldn't be normal.

He took another step forward.

His lungs were still suffering from the abuse the superheated stream had done, and while adrenaline had muted their complaints while he was sprinting for his life, he was most certainly paying for it now. The scorch marks from the laser grid he'd had to work through were curiously painless, but he was pretty sure that was just the initial stages of shock. He'd let himself be more properly concerned about that when _all_ of the pain vanished. 

He took another step forward.

Overall, Dipper Pines winced to himself, he probably looked like death warmed over. It was an honest miracle he was still able to _move_ , let alone _walk._

He took another step forward.

A shivering, terrified part of his mind whispered that he'd be _death cold turkey_ soon enough.

He...

He took... 

A-...another step forward...

Had to keep waking. Get to the end, and it's the end. Then at least he would have _tried_ to make a deal to make things better. At best, he would have died while moving himself further forward through this overall ordeal. At worst, he would forget everything, all of the torment, mental, emotional, and physical, of this maze directly from hell. And in the end... while that wasn't _ideal_ , maybe it wouldn't be too bad to not remember this day. At least for a while.

But he still needed to _try._

He found himself leaning much more heavily against the wall with every step forward, since the feeling didn’t want to return fully to his legs and was instead seemingly disappearing more and more. The shock was spreading, it seemed.

He counted seconds. Then minutes. Then he started counting his steps. Every one felt like a small victory to him, in a way. 

Soon, his attention shifted to counting his breaths. Every one of _those_ was starting to feel like a sarcastic, bitter victory, too.

He bit down the urge to almost cry in relief when he noticed the ground beneath his feet shifting from the almost-too-smooth amber to dirt again, something his feet could actually grip. He looked up in time to turn a corner and felt his heart skip a beat with joy. The hallway had shifted -- it was still a hallway, but at the same time it was still distinctly one of Bill’s “fun rooms”. 

He took a few seconds to examine it from where he was, having learned from Stan’s Fun Room that maybe it wouldn’t be prudent to just go running in. Not that he could really run much, anyway. He noted a small glass window off to his left, next to a small opening in the wall that was just big enough to squeeze a hand and maybe a bit of his arm through. He didn’t see Mabel, but he was fairly certain that she’d appear through that window soon enough. The rest of the hallway returned to that strangely smooth amber, though there was, he noted, a seeming imperfection -- a set of straight cracks on both walls, running from floor to ceiling. There wasn’t a crack along the floor or ceiling connecting them, but he was pretty sure they were directly across from one another.

He limped over to the window to peer through to Mabel’s side, seeing that a similar set of cracks were present there as well. Squinting down the length of his corridor (it had to be at least a hundred meters. It looked about the right length for one of the track team’s practicing dashes), he noticed another set of what looked like the straight up-and-down cracks in the walls.

He also, with some measure of dread, saw Bill leaning at the far wall, twirling his cane in one hand and staring toward him from that distance. Dipper was almost certain he was smirking. He didn’t know how he knew, but he knew. 

The demon was standing beside two levers built into the still seemingly-unbroken amber of that wall, and while Dipper wasn’t sure what they would do, he was sure they were somehow involved in how this “fun room” would operate. He pulled his gaze away from Bill and the levers, a chill running down his spine, and instead looked back through the window again, waiting to see his twin’s face.

Mabel rounded the corner to enter her room a second later, her hand still trailing the wall as she slowed, having realized the corridor had changed. She sighted him through the window half a second later and her face lit up with a confused mixture of joy, shock, and worry. Within two seconds, she was across from him.

His hand was already pressing through the hole in the wall, scrambling for hers. Tears sprung to her eyes as she grabbed hold of his hand, twining her fingers through his -- it took him a second to realize that the streaks of warmth dashing down his cheeks were his own tears of relief. The clasp of their hands sent a shock of pain through his still tender skin, but it still felt so _good_ to be able to touch her, to receive independent confirmation that he could _feel_ that she was still in one piece.

“You look like shit.” she murmured, her voice cracked and congested with emotion, and Dipper felt another surge of fierce, miserable joy that he could _hear_ her, clear as if she really were standing right next to him.

“Probably worse than I feel.” he murmured back, squeezing her hand despite the increased prickling pain in his hand’s skin. “I’m pretty sure I started going into shock about ten minutes ago. I’m mostly numb now.” He did his best to pitch his voice in a dry, unconcerned sort of tone. 

He was gratified when a disbelieving giggle broke through Mabel’s teary-eyed staring at him. “You _can’t_ be cracking jokes about going into _shock._ ” she declared, managing a weak, watery glare. “You’re not _allowed._ Not after all of the crap this maze has put us through.”

“Yes ma’am.” he offered his own weak grin through the glass. “It’s almost over, now, though…” Somehow, deep in his gut, he knew that this was the final trial. The last thing that would happen in this maze. There was no exit door on the other side of his hallway, though he could barely see one at the end of Mabel’s. 

“Don’t _say_ that.” she squeezed his hand, and he watched her eyes flicker around, clearly taking in the observations he had already made. As always, his twin knew what he was thinking without him having to articulate it into words. “We’ll find a way for you to get out. It can’t-- It can’t be over. Not with a dead end--”

“I think we both knew I wasn’t going to be leaving this maze alive, Mabel.” he cut her off, feeling a stab of guilt when she flinched. He hated having to hurt her, but the argument was moot at that point. No matter what this fun room was about, he wouldn’t be leaving it. Either he would succeed in “taking Mabel’s fun” and probably get killed by the task ahead, or--

He refused to think of what the other option would entail. He wasn’t about to let Mabel have to endure the _fun_ Bill Cipher had in store for them both. He already knew this room was going to be deliberately and irrevocably fatal to one of them, and he was determined that it _wouldn’t be his twin._

He turned his head toward Bill again, at the end of his hallway, and noted that the demon was holding up a hand, twisting blue demon dealfire between his fingers.

“Are you ready to start?” Bill called down the hallway, the sound echoing faintly around both of them until Dipper was sure the walls were reverberating with it.

“Are you ready to talk _business?_ ” Dipper called back, somehow managing to keep his voice steady.

A shiver ran down his spine -- he was sure Bill’s smirk had just widened. “Name your wish, I’ll name my price,” he stated back, the strange echo accompanying Mabel tightening her hold on his hand. 

For a few seconds, Dipper’s mind scrambled to gather all of the pieces of thought relevant to that statement. _My wish,_ he thought, his eyebrows furrowing in deep, intense thought as he tried to knock out as many, if not all, of the loopholes that could be exploited. He had to word this right.

“I want my memories back, untampered with and complete, and I want them safe from you taking them away again,” he finally called, squeezing Mabel’s hand as hard as he could and focusing on the stinging, demanding pain that this caused. To name something like that was less than a wish and more of a demand, and he wanted to make sure his voice sounded like it. Focusing on the stinging pain of his hand helped him swallow down and ignore any potential fear of demanding such a thing from Bill.

“That’s a hefty desire, Pine Tree.” Bill sneered. “I don’t think you can meet my demands in return for _all_ of it. I can give you untampered with and complete, if you _really_ want those...”

Dipper narrowed his eyes down the hallway toward the demon. “But no safety that you can’t take them away again?”

“Well, I can make them _conditionally_ safe, I suppose.” 

Dipper knew he was going to regret asking, but he wasn’t about to let any vagueness muck up the potential of getting his memories back. “What are the conditions, in concise, exact terms?”

Bill, at the end of the hallway, hooked his cane on the elbow of the arm with the dealfire growing on his fingers, bringing his other hand to his chin in mock consideration. “I’d rather not have the _entire_ entourage ruining my potential fun with you. So if I give you your memories back, you wouldn’t be allowed to _talk_ about them with anyone,” an intense chill went down Dipper’s spine at that, and he could hear the implied threat in the words, “not even your twin. In fact, if you do bring it up to anyone about this entire _situation_ \-- the hunts, our deals, all the _nasty_ little ways I’ve killed you, the resulting _‘nightmares’_... not only will I take your memories away again, I’ll do it after I’ve made you watch the person that you blabbed to _die horrifically_. You talk, the other person becomes fair game for the hunt.”

Dipper swallowed heavily, getting the lump in his throat to move painfully down again so he could speak once more. “If you take the memories away-- I’ll only agree to that if it’s not permanently. If I’m allowed to do another deal like this, afterwards.”

The air seemed to grow chill. “It’s a _penalty_ for a reason, Pine Tree.” Bill’s voice held a note of warning that made Dipper want to recoil, but he held his ground.

“Three times.” Dipper held up a hand, “If I talk, you can take them away again, but if I manage to remember three separate times I’ll be allowed to make the deal again. The number three is a good number,” he forced a sardonic smile, “You’ve already established you’re rather fond of things with three sides.”

_[Hvpm mpr amzvsx, buzbkr bam cmgiybr. Gbc'km ntkmnlr orbmqao fwem hcg wy buql lrie buig gbc hctpm bb jx, Kvxame, lhv'g jx wovhfvwna.]_

Bill made a nearly feral snarling noise, the hand with the dealfire clenching into a fist and the fire flaring up for a second before he carefully took a deep breath, releasing his fist and breathing out in a hiss of air through his nose. “Fine. But all of this posturing is pointless if you can’t make the deal.” And with that, his mouth curled back into a sharp-toothed smile. “And I’m not moving.”

Dipper immediately leaned a bit away, guarded, glancing at the hallway again. “...I suppose that means it’s time to discuss what this room will do.”

“Indeed it is, Pine Tree!” The tone immediately shifted from irritated and clipped dealmaking to unabashed _glee_. Bill gestured with his free hand toward the hallway around them. “This is the grand finale, the _piece de resistance_ , the _cherry on top_ of this entire maze. All of the other rooms could be cleared with some luck or skill involved, but this one is inescapable. One of you will die in here… or _both_ of you will die in here. There is no other option.”

His cane was back in his hand in an instant, twirling through the air, “The walls on both sides of this hallway will compress together at a rate equal to the rate that you move through them, such that you will be inevitably crushed within a foot of the end. An arm or perhaps a leg may escape, but nothing more than that.” He gestured to the levers beside him, “The lever on the left will disengage the mechanisms that will cause Shooting Star’s room to work this way. The lever on the right will stop yours.” The toothy smile was so wide that Dipper could make out the flash of white teeth with relative ease. “I’ll only pull one. And I’ll only pull the one that you _both_ agree on.”

Dipper felt every atom in his body seem to go cold, and felt Mabel’s hand go completely slack around his, as she stilled to a nearly dangerous degree. He knew that if he looked out of the corner of his eye, her face would be split in a panic. He knew his was. 

They both had to agree on which of them was going to die. That was cruel even for Bill.

“ _No._ ” Mabel immediately hissed when the initial shock passed, snapping her head around to glare through the glass at Dipper. Dipper snatched his hand back from her, turning his gaze to the floor.

He didn’t look at her, or acknowledge that she had spoken, instead directing his words toward Bill, “...and if I sprint this hallway -- if it kills me at the end -- you’ll still be there within my reach to make the deal? You won’t pull your hand out of reach, or-- or teleport away? No wall will spring forward at the end to stop me from getting to you?”

“I’ll promise you a _fair chance,_ Pine Tree.” Bill almost sounded amused. Maybe it was the image of Dipper being crushed to death that had put him in a good mood. “I won’t make it unnecessarily harder on you, but I won’t make it any easier either.”

“Dipper, _no._ ” Mabel hissed again, a note of hysteria forming in her voice. “ _No!_ You’re not -- I won’t allow it! You need this deal, and the day will reset anyway--”

“ _I’m not going to watch you die, Mabel!_ ” he snapped his head around to her, his voice cracking as he nearly screamed it toward her, his eyes burning. He dropped down to a terrified, trembling whisper, “I don’t want to remember that. If I have to watch you die, I don’t even want to try to make this deal at all.” 

He leaned his head forward until his forehead thumped against the glass, his shoulders heaving as he finally let out the sob that had been burning in his throat for a while now. He couldn’t take this kind of stress, and he couldn’t stand the thought of Mabel suffering that kind of fate. “Please,” he whispered against the glass between heavy breaths, “ _Please._ ”

His hand was resting at the opening of the hole on his side of the wall. He felt Mabel timidly rest her fingers on the tips of his, her own hand trembling as much as his was.

“I don’t want to watch you dying, either.” she whispered, pleading.

He didn’t respond, his eyes closed, struggling to get his breathing back under control.

Eventually, her fingers squeezed his and pulled away, and she ducked her own head miserably. “Pull my lever,” she called, loud enough for Bill to hear, knowing that he wouldn’t do anything until _she_ spoke. He already knew what Dipper was going to choose.

Neither twin could look up until they heard the distinctive sound of a mechanism being disabled. Then, and only then, Dipper looked up to see what Bill had done.

True to his word, the left lever was pulled -- Mabel’s trap was disabled. He forced himself to take a deep breath, seeing Bill extend his hand with the dealfire toward him. As soon as he started moving, the walls would begin.

He locked his eyes on that extended hand, and shifted his reluctant body down into a sprinter’s starting position. _At least I’ll die doing something I love,_ his thoughts echoed sarcastically back at him.

Mabel, on the other side of the glass, turned away from him, her face in her hands. She had agreed to this. It didn’t mean she wanted to see it.

The first few steps were agony, until he actually got going, and adrenaline numbed the remaining pain down again. He kept his gaze locked on his goal, no matter the rumbling of stone that was quickly becoming deafening in his ears. The width of the hallway was decreasing, as Bill had said.

Twenty five meters, four feet of width. _Goodbye, Soos._

Fifty meters, three feet of width. _Bye, Grunkle Stan._

Seventy five, and two feet left, he pulled his shoulders in and narrowed his eyes on Bill’s hand. _I love you, Wendy._

Ninety meters, he had to twist sideways to keep running, throwing his arm forward and aiming for Bill’s hand. _Forgive me, Mabel, I’m sorry._

His hand cleared the ending, then his arm, and he flailed as blinding pain registered everywhere on his body. He barely heard the sound of bones cracking, the squishing sound of muscles and his torso being crushed. His finger snagged on the bend of Bill’s wrist, his hand curling into the Demon’s for half a second before he lost feeling in everywhere simultaneously.

All at once, in an obliterating instant of pure agony, he was gone.

 

The walls were stained with crimson red and dark black gore, with mush and bone fragments sliding down them as they retreated. The unfortunate victim’s arm, still mostly intact, fell motionlessly to the ground at the demon’s feet, while he stared at his hand. The fire had gone out. The deal had been made.

_[It’s a testament to his skills in track and field that he was able to run in that state **and** complete the deal.]_

Not even the dry tone of the girl who was helping him could stop the nearly manic grin from forming on his face, while he flickered his gaze between his hand and the disgustingly gory walls. Despite the fact that he had had to give up more than he would have liked in that deal, he still felt a nearly gleeful surge of delight and power running through his system, the usual sensation of a done deal mixed with the rush of pleasure at a particularly horrific deed. “I suppose that settles that, then!” he closed his hand into a fist, letting out a faint cackle of delight.

“Wait!”

His gaze snapped up toward the end of the hallway, where Shooting Star’s hand was just barely visible poking through that little hole in the wall he had so _generously_ included (at the snarky annoyance’s ‘request’, which amounted to nearly a demand). She was waving it as much as she could for such a confined space, desperation tinging her tone.

Bill always liked the sound of desperation. Desperate people did stupid things.

He twirled his cane, giving another cackle again as he strode down the hallway until he stood opposite Mabel, grinning morbidly down at her. “Need something, Shooting Star~?” he sneered, “I won’t bring him back, in case you were wondering.”

“I--” she swallowed, glaring weakly at him. He felt a surge of amusement at it -- Pine Tree had glared like that once upon a time. He wondered what had changed that -- “I want to make a deal.”

“Name your terms,” he crooned, lifting his hand and beginning a new dealfire.

“I’ll be allowed to remember what happened today. I’ll know about the situation.”

“You’ll _also_ not be allowed to discuss it,” He sneered, “Nor will you be allowed to give Pine Tree any indication that you know, or any direct help. Otherwise I’ll consider you just as much open season as he is. And if you talk, I’ll take away your memory _permanently_. No re-dealing for you.”

“Done,” she snapped without hesitation, wiggling her fingers. Bill held up one finger, and noted the spark of panic that formed in her eyes at his gesture for her to wait.

“I wasn’t finished.” he muttered darkly. “You’ll also owe me a condition-free favor. I never make the same deal twice.”

For half a second, he thought he saw her reconsidering. Favors were tricky things to weave into deals, and usually most people were either too dumb to consider possible consequences or smart enough to refuse that sort of condition. Shooting Star was immediately disqualified from the first set. He’d have to see if he had gauged her correctly regarding the latter.

After that half a second of hesitation, she snapped her fingers, her eyes narrowing in determination. “Done.” she said, her voice softened, but _steady._

Bill’s mouth curled into a sardonic smile, all sharp, sharp teeth and gum and _pleasure_ with no attached warmth. “Deal.” he said, just as soft as she had, as he pushed his hand into hers and the blue hellfire went out.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “Ipl gggs sedsahku 'ntefp gkw utpve,  
> apdjg mt qazr wzcn evuabq tcrh?  
> Auty L w'gr hiq ahpegr'h izl?  
> Jldn I t'id ijdcg aveuv?  
> Np A frteyqaj? So I siml?  
> Np A vrptbmq lf oy daz prdv?  
> C dtex wafw utgyos vv zcrs xa jehsm,  
> Bjx fpvv vgaa'w yweh ljac M oia wsme.  
> Uiql zh hqihsz; wihjfohi  
> U lbq'l yacx fw fwsa cdqmbbvw.” 
> 
> [Bill has a strange level of control over this place, doesn’t he?]


End file.
